Rethinking our Asian streets

In Marikina, childhood meant freedom, friendship and the smell of freshly baked pandesal in the morning.

Back then, when it was still a municipality, everyday life unfolded in a blur of color and community. I woke each day to the familiar voices of different vendors selling newspapers, fish and taho who, over time, became family friends. Afternoons were spent playing patintero, agawan base and other street games, or riding bikes with my cousins down the sloping streets, blissfully unaware of cars or curfews. Come merienda time, we’d stop by our suking tindahan or a nearby ihawan (grill stand) for sticks of isaw or hotdog, before returning home to find our grandparents seated outside, sipping coffee on a wooden bench by the gate. It was a world where everything we needed was just around the corner, and the sense of community felt infinite.

Growing up, my world was defined by the rhythm of my city — familiar, walkable and green. Life moved slower then. Traffic was a rarity, and I had the privilege to live a stone’s throw away from my city’s 10-kilometer linear river park. This green spine brought together neighbors and strangers alike for morning jogs, weekend picnics, or even a quick stop to buy vegetables freshly harvested along its banks. My immediate environment was lush, accessible, and designed for people. I once thought, “Maybe it’s like this everywhere in the country.” However, that perception profoundly changed when I moved to a different city for my undergraduate architecture studies, and later, abroad for graduate school. There, I was confronted with the stark contrasts in urban planning — and it was through this exposure that I began to understand the deeper cultural forces that shape our streets. My ongoing research in recent years has consistently brought the idea of the ‘Asian street’ back to the forefront, resonating deeply with the way I remember my childhood neighborhood.

And I thought to myself, what if we had never been colonized? What might our streets and cities look like today — would they be more in tune with the rhythms of community and nature? Could we have developed our own distinctly Asian street design, one that reflects our climate, culture, and ways of life? Perhaps reimagining our streets through this lens is the key to solving chronic traffic, shrinking public spaces, and a deepening disconnect from our built environment, all challenges of modern cities today. These are questions I return to often, lingering in the background of my work and memories alike.

Uniquely Asian street: A different kind of space

Why do our streets feel so different from those in the West?

A 2007 study by Mateo-Babiano and Ieda offers a compelling answer: much of Asia, shaped by tropical forests and seasonal rhythms, fosters a worldview rooted in fluidity, coexistence and a deep respect for the natural environment. This translates into streets and public spaces, where activities are defined vertically or time-dependently, unlike the horizontal, single-function spaces common in the West. Unlike the Western Plaza — neatly framed by institutions like a church, government building and market, each with its fixed role — Asian streets are layered and dynamic. By day, a single stretch of street might host fish vendors, taho peddlers, or sidewalk sari-sari stores. By late afternoon, children reclaim the same space as their playground. Come evening, it transforms yet again — into a night market, a dining strip with karaoke, or a casual gathering spot for neighbors. Here, function follows flow, not form.

This instinctive, time-based approach to public space was also observed by R.L. Stone in 1973, who described it as a kind of “private, transitory possession or use of public property.” In the Philippine context, this means that shared spaces are often perceived not as collectively owned, but as momentarily “yours” while you use them. It’s a subtle but powerful shift in perspective. And this helps explain why our streets are lined with parked cars, informal food stalls, and shaded benches claimed by vendors or passersby. And this isn’t just a local phenomenon; many of our Asian neighbors exhibit the same fluid, adaptive use of public space, rooted in cultural traditions that value flexibility over formality.

Call for context-driven urban planning

In many Asian cities, national efforts often focus on grand transport infrastructure. This results in an amalgam of flyovers, highways and rail systems, while the quieter, everyday spaces for walking and gathering are left to the hands of local governments or even private groups. We’ve seen this play out in Metro Manila, with initiatives like the Ortigas CBD’s pedestrianization project and Makati City’s growing network of underpasses and elevated walkways — both clear attempts to reclaim public space and prioritize the pedestrian. These are steps in the right direction. But infrastructure alone isn’t enough.

Design professionals, for all their training and vision, sometimes miss the most crucial part: truly listening to the street. To build streets that work for people, we must first understand the soul of the community — its rhythms, habits, histories, and hopes. It means studying how people use space, not just how it’s zoned. The street, after all, is more than just a corridor for movement; it’s a “place” for neighbors, for vendors, for memory-making. If we continue to impose rigid Western notions of space — where public and private are neatly separated — we risk designing over the very character that makes our cities alive.

The future of our cities doesn’t lie in simply widening roads or building more skywalks. It also lies in sound policy making and in reclaiming the street as a cultural space, a human space — a place where design begins not with blueprints, but with empathy.