Manila CBD's: Eastwood

 

The video above shows Eastwood CBD in the foreground and the Ortigas CBD at right. This was taken over the Marikina River LRT line at the eastern side of the metropolis, nearly 20 kilometers away from the old city center, about 3 kilometers away from Eastwood. At 0.06, the eastern tip of Fort Bonifacio, can be glimpsed between Eastwood & Ortigas as the camera moves eastward. Eastwood, Ortigas & Fort Bonifacio are the most eastern among Manila's CBD's.

 

Eastwood in Libis, Quezon City is the grandfather of the BPO skyscraper estates in Metro Manila and though one of the smallest American-style CBD's in the city, cuts an imposing towering apparition amidst the teeming residential enclaves in the eastern fringes of the 20-million strong metropolis . Out of the many CBD's of Manila, only two are found within the old city, Binondo & the Ermita-Malate along Manila Bay. The rest are found along and/or outside the old Pre-WWII ring road, EDSA, which is now the main road of the metropolis. The three most eastern are Ortigas (developed rapidly after the Asian Development Bank relocated there about two decades ago), Eastwood (developed in 1997) & Fort Bonifacio Global City (developed in 1995).

Besides being mainly a BPO & technology center, Eastwood is also the shopping & nightlife entertainment center of eastern Metro Manila, particularly the Marikina Valley area, especially among the young because of nearby major universities at Katipunan Avenue- Ateneo de Manila University & University of the Philippines, the main private & public universities respectively of the country. Just less than a couple of kilometers away to the east starts the foothills of Sierra Madre Mountains so it's highly likely  there'll be no more new CBD construction in the east. Could we then expect growth would finally arrive in the avenues BETWEEN the CBD's instead? In this case, along C5 highway which connects Eastwood & Fort Bonifacio. Or better yet, between the inner CBD's so the ramshackle structures in the inner city would be gentrified. Seoul imposed restriction on new developments outside the city perimeter so that its ramshackle inner city could be built over instead. A good lesson to take heed for Manila where the "gaya-gaya" (copycat) trend has been to imitate the Ayala's formula for Makati- find a wide vacant space & build a CBD. Why not buy old structures between the CBD's  instead then build better-designed, post-modern new ones so the city will finally gentrify throughout. If it was able to develop First World CBD's, why not First World avenues connecting those CBD's?