6. Visions & Strategies 6.1. Yangon at a Turning Point: Progress, Heritage and Community As Yangon, and particularly its CBD, continues to attract new investment, the city must take progressive steps to integrate consideration of the assets and needs of both its built heritage and existing communities within its planning for real estate and infrastructure development. In the following vision for the future of Yangon, a series of strategies are proposed to protect existing communities from displacement, conserve heritage, and also make the CBD and the broader city of Yangon a more desirable place to live, work, invest in, and visit.
Case Studies
Heritage conservation can be used as a tool to improve access to jobs and housing, to encourage and facilitate political inclusiveness, and to support economic prosperity. To support this vision for the future of Yangon, the strategies presented are drawn from the heritage conservation and urban development case studies used to develop the ‘factors contributing to displacement’ framework presented in this report (the case studies are presented in full in the Appendix B). Ideas used in this vision have also been derived from international approaches to urban policy and city development, observations made by the team while visiting Yangon’s CBD, and conversations the team conducted with experts, residents, and stakeholders from the CBD. The unifying goal of Factors Contributing to Displacement
Background Research
these strategies is to counteract the potential factors that cause displacement identified in this report while using conservation as a tool for development. This vision addresses the tensions that can exist between desires for modernization and development versus desires for heritage conservation. Yangon has a unique opportunity to develop a productive and model approach to navigating these two realms. Myanmar has undergone rapid political and economic change in recent years, but the CBD still maintains an extensive inventory of heritage buildings, a diverse community and a traditional street-level economy. These are valuable assets that should be leveraged in the development in the community. These assets must inform people
Symposium
Site Visits
A Vision For Future Yangon
Transparent & Equitable
Economically Diverse & Vibrant
Culturally Inclusive & Engaging
Habitable & Affordable
Connected & Integrated
Diagram 2 - The process for informing the studio teams vision for Yangon Yangon at a Turning Point: Progress, Heritage, and Community - 51
