Forest City: A Prime Model Of Future Cities
Forest City is the enterprise of Country Garden Pacificview Sdn Bhd, a joint venture between Country Garden Group and the Malaysian-government-backend Esplanade Danga 88 Sdn Bhd (EDSB)
Compromising four man-made islands spanning 30km2, the newly-built Forest City will be a smart and green futuristic city that combines environment, technology and cutting-edge technology to create an ideal, idyllic and technology-driven living and working space ecosystem. This is a unique opportunity to be part of this dynamism.
As a group of four man-made islands, Forest CIty is first and foremost, visually distinct from the other developments and townships in Iskandar. It also distinguishes itself in other ways; in building Forest City as independent islands from the ground up, Country Garden Pacificview has the freedom to create an urban landscape and key elements that foster an ideal living environment. These unique features will also enhance the security and privacy of Forest City.
Forest City, Johor
Forest City is an integrated residential development and private town located in Iskandar Puteri, Johor, Malaysia on a land 1,370 hectares wide. First announced in 2006 as a twenty-year project, the project was pitched under China's Belt and Road Initiative.
It was officiated by then-Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak in 2016, with the approval of the Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail. Forest City is a joint venture between Esplanade Danga 88, an affiliate of state government subsidiary Kumpulan Prasarana Rakyat Johor (KPRJ), through a joint venture, Country Garden Holding Ltd (CGPV), with CGPV holding 60 percent of shares, while KPRJ holds the other 40 percent. Forest City is under the management of the Iskandar Puteri City Council and the Iskandar Regional Development Authority. The development of Forest City is contentious. The project was largely not targeted at local Malaysians but rather at upper-middle-class citizens from China who were looking to park their wealth abroad, by offering relatively affordable seafront properties compared to expensive coastal cities within their country such as Shanghai. However, initial strong sales from China collapsed after its leader Xi Jinping implemented currency controls, including a $50,000 annual cap on how much buyers could spend outside the country. Such lackluster sales were exacerbated by the 2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, with the project now being described as a "ghost town". The project, which is located on reclaimed land, has also been criticised for causing large amounts of habitat destruction in the vicinity
Despite being marketed as "an energy-efficient, ecologically sensitive, land-conserving, low-polluting offshore city", the development has had significant negative environmental impact, with irreversible damage due to reclamation of ecologically sensitive coastal wetlands. The area within which Forest City lies is protected as an Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) Rank 1 area, where no development is allowed except for low-impact nature tourism, research and education. Chief to this designation are two areas of international ecological significance, the Tanjung Kupang intertidal seagrass meadow, the largest of its kind in Malaysia, and the Pulai River Mangrove Forest Reserve, designated as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. Reclamation began in January 2014 without the legally required Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA). Residents from Kampung Tanjung Kupang, a traditional fishing village, complained of reduced catches and other issues to the local and Johor State authorities to no avail.
