Singapore

Singapore is small — about seven hundred and thirty square kilometres — and that scale explains most of it. Everything is close, the transport is quick, and the city has been able to plan itself in a way larger places cannot. The result reads as one designed object rather than a set of districts that grew into each other.

The interesting part is what survived the planning. Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam are still distinct, still low-built and still full of shophouses, a few stops from the glass of Marina Bay. The island also keeps far more green than its density suggests.