Build a city for the future? Bhutan's plans could inspire the world

The Himalayan kingdom in the clouds seeks an alternative vision of what sustainable urban life could be like - with a down-to-earth pragmatism, too.

- Karen Tee

Something interesting is brewing in the heart of the Himalayas. Bhutan, the world's most mountainous country, recently held its inaugural Bhutan Innovation Forum to kick-start its ambitious project of building a new city called Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) that it aims to position as a future hub in South Asia.

The innovation forum, held in October in Paro, a historic town west of the capital, Thimphu, gathered some of the world's most prominent intellectuals, including the economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, French scientist-turned-monk Matthieu Ricard and acclaimed Danish architect Bjarke Ingels. They discussed what they imagine a modern and enlightened city would be like.

What is unique is that the new city is envisioned as an urban centre that bucks the convention of a stereotypical concrete jungle packed with soulless skyscrapers indistinguishable from one another. Instead, the goal is to build a city grounded in well-being and happiness by integrating civil infrastructure, green technologies and mindful innovation.

Of course, how this ultimately turns out remains to be seen - construction has not yet begun. Only the blueprint for transforming the existing town of Gelephu - located at the country's border with India - into a modern special administrative region, has been released.

Certainly, through the history of civilisation, humanity has constructed countless cities. Many remain thriving metropolises, even more have faded into obscurity and others have failed even to attract a critical mass of inhabitants.

For instance, the US$100 billion (S$134 billion) luxury development of Forest City in Johor is widely regarded as a "ghost city", while Myanmar's sprawling capital of Naypyitaw is so shrouded in secrecy that it remains sparsely populated, with its massive yet empty multilane highways looking strangely surreal in pictures on Google.