03/08/2026
What if cities stopped trying to control water and started working with it?
In Singapore, a concrete drainage channel was transformed into a naturalized river and public park.
Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park shows how infrastructure can become something more than a system for moving water. It can restore ecological function, create habitat, and become a place for people to gather and connect with nature.
The question is not only how cities manage their natural systems.
It is how those systems can become part of urban life again.
Generation Regeneration by Future of Cities founder Tony Cho dives into this shift, from treating stormwater as a problem to engineer away, to recognizing it as one of the many hidden potentials of a place.
It’s one of the case studies explored alongside conversations with leading experts from the Generation Regeneration Online Global Summit, who are already co-designing the future of our cities with the natural environment.
Comment BOOK and we’ll send you the link to explore.
What happens when a city makes room for what it buried?
For decades, the Cheonggyecheon stream was covered by roads and infrastructure in the center of Seoul.
Then the highway was removed.
The stream returned.
Today, Cheonggyecheon is a public landscape that brings water, biodiversity, and everyday life back into the heart of the city — biodiversity along the corridor increased by 639%, and land values within fifty meters of the stream rose up to 50%.
Sometimes regeneration is not about building something new. Sometimes it begins by removing what was preventing life from returning.
Generation Regeneration by Tony Cho breaks down Cheonggyecheon through a people, planet, and profit lens — including the real economic return this kind of regeneration can deliver. It’s one of several stories alongside conversations with the experts already finding the spaces in between where regeneration can begin.
Comment BOOK and we’ll send you the link to get your copy of the book + unlock select conversations from the Generation Regeneration Online Global Summit.
What happens when a river stops being a barrier and becomes part of the city again?
In Medellín, the Parques de
