Greening Real Estate Developments

To some people, real estate developers are viewed not only as creators of houses, subdivisions and buildings, but of communities. To others, they are seen as destroyers of natural habitats, producers of urban sprawl, and creators of dysfunctional, fragmented developments. But the sorry state of our towns and cities is not necessarily the fault of […]

Housing & Urban Redevelopment

There is no question that the need for affordable housing in our urban centers is rising, while many of our older downtowns require revitalization because of unbounded population growth, housing price inflation, and increasing poverty. As our population continues to rapidly increase and affordability levels decrease, the gap between housing needs and supply, particularly for […]

Manila Bay: beyond the cleanup

The recently launched cleanup of Metro Manila’s “toilet bowl” has been long overdue. It actually would not have been needed if only its care and management were not fragmented as it is. There are 5,714 barangays in 178 cities and towns in seven provinces (Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Bulacan, Pampanga, Bataan and Zambales) in three regions […]

The Government-Led Plunder of the Marikina Watershed

For over a century, the government itself – instead of zealously protecting the Marikina Watershed – has actively paved the way for its gradual demise. The recently maligned mining agreements allegedly allowing quarry operations within its boundaries are but recent examples of this long-standing apathy. Successive governmental acts in the past decades considerably diminished the […]