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Collaborative green cells for liveable streets
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
By Muyleng Heng
Junior Research Fellow
Future Forum's junior research fellow, Muyleng heng, has published a new commentary on Collaborative green cells for liveable streets. Check out the full article below!
While the first commentary introduced the 2-Meter Ecological Green Walk (2MEGW) as a spatial intervention to reclaim street space for pedestrians, this second commentary focuses on long-term sustainability and the positive social impact of walkable streets in Phnom Penh, which depend not only on physical design but also on collaborative governance and reactivating the exciting potential of underused sidewalks.
How can Phnom Penh sustain and scale pedestrian space socially? By actively involving residents, local councils, NGOs, and public institutions in the management and everyday use of green corridors, the 2 Meter Ecological Green Walk (2MEGW) can evolve from a pilot infrastructure project into a living urban system.
This commentary discusses the potential connectivity of the 2MEGW proposal as an organism-like green cell that collaborates with the design and engagement community, with proper planning to restore the underused of existing sidewalks and make streets in Phnom Penh more livable.
Policy issue and empirical evidence
Although Phnom Penh has sidewalks and pedestrian infrastructure, accessibility and connectivity remain a challenge. The issue is not only a design problem but also a governance challenge, whereby regulations are not consistently enforced and public space is often claimed for private use.
Improving walkability in Phnom Penh requires more than the construction of new pedestrian infrastructure; it also requires governance mechanisms that clarify responsibilities among municipal authorities, district administrations, and local communities. Addressing this governance gap is essential for ensuring that pedestrian initiatives such as the 2-Meter Ecological Green Walk (2MEGW) remain accessible, inclusive, and sustainable over time.
Key arguments and implementation process
Stakeholder and governance framework
The central argument of Commentary 02 is that 2MEGW must serve as a public urban system that is fully integrated with existing sidewalks, creating safe, accessible, and inclusive spaces for pedestrians. This requires clearly defined roles and responsibilities among all stakeholders, from municipal authorities to local community groups, ensuring that each actor knows their duties and can effectively contribute to the overall management of the space. Governance will play a very crucial role at this stage, facilitating the transformation of underused roadside parking and marginal spaces into active green corridors that can thrive even in the dense center of Phnom Penh, where public space is limited and competing interests are many. Without a structured governance framework in place, pilot projects risk stagnation or informal misuse, which could ultimately undermine both social and ecological goals in the long term.
Local authorities and district administrations play a critical operational role. They are responsible for the daily management of the green walk spaces, coordinating with residents, monitoring informal activities, and responding to conflicts as they arise. Rather than acting solely as enforcement bodies, local authorities function as facilitators and mediators, recognizing the negotiated nature of urban space in Phnom Penh and fostering trust and cooperation among all sidewalk users.
To operationalize this framework, local authorities should establish district-level committees that include municipal officers, community representatives, women’s groups, school representatives, and local vendors. These committees can oversee maintenance schedules, resolve conflicts, and ensure that sidewalks remain accessible to priority users such as women, children, and elderly residents. Clear mandates for each actor—government, community, and civil society—will help avoid overlapping responsibilities and ensure accountability, and guarantee that all decisions are made transparently.
Community engagement as social infrastructure
Rather than moving people out immediately, which affects many people who are running businesses, this project acts as a strengthening mechanism that connects the local street food culture to the community, highlighting the existing culture while improving their economy and daily livelihoods in a sustainable way.
Participatory workshops allow local residents and street food vendors to co-design their living areas, creating the layouts that match their requirements for daily use and practical functionality, and developing adaptive urban sidewalks that allow the existing culture to grow. This process increases acceptance among all those who might be using this space, particularly those who might lose their parking spaces or informal selling areas.
Women and children experience public space differently due to safety concerns. Properly designed green walks, integrated with the local community, reduce social isolation while providing privacy and a sense of security, encouraging these groups to engage more actively with public space.
Safe and well-connected public sidewalks where people can see and interact with each other also helps prevent crime, compared to isolated public spaces. Design features should reflect real daily needs, such as safe pedestrian crossings, resting areas, adequate lighting, visibility from surrounding buildings, and clear signage.
For children, sidewalks are not only movement corridors but also learning and social spaces. Integrating play elements, visual cues, and traffic-calming measures near schools and residential areas can support children’s independence while increasing parental confidence in allowing them to walk safely. Similarly, seating, shaded areas, and accessible ramps ensure that elderly residents and people with disabilities can fully participate in the urban environment without barriers or discomfort.
From green cells to citywide green network
While Commentary 01 focuses on a single pilot corridor, Commentary 02 emphasizes the importance of linking multiple “green cells” into a broader ecological and social network. Each pilot project functions as a connection within a larger system, gradually forming continuous pedestrian-friendly corridors across the city.
At the citywide scale, planning should prioritize connecting sidewalks with safety and shading. Continuity of this urban green cell must ensure connectivity between 2MEGW, existing sidewalks, schools, markets, and existing bus stops. Rather than concentrating investment solely on major boulevards, this approach leverages sub-roads and low- to medium-traffic streets to create an alternative pedestrian network.
Ecologically, connected green cells contribute to reducing the urban heat island effect, improving air quality in Phnom Penh, and creating spaces to integrate biodiversity with local life. Socially, this will reinforce the strong culture of Khmer street food. Preserving this old culture will also make Phnom Penh more appealing and more explorable to foreigners.
Embedding this vision into official planning frameworks is critical. Once pilot projects prove successful, guidelines for 2MEGW can be integrated into municipal street design standards, ensuring replication across districts and long-term adoption in urban planning practices citywide.
Counterargument and cost
A common counterargument is that collaboration between government and local residents is time-consuming and complicates the process. Regulations need to start with a bottom-up approach, carefully considering the local vendors whose families depend on this income to survive. Therefore, workshop study from urban designers are essential in terms of creating a spatial design that fits with the community.
While the existing implementation strategies are more focused on a top-down approach, in some places, the government removes people who depend on small businesses to survive without providing alternative solutions. Therefore, this new urban planning policy should consider everyone who might be affected by the development; without a precise study of new problems, this approach might be more likely to weaken the economy. On the other hand, some regulations have been frozen due to the practice of treating all sidewalks as private property, leading to the habit of taking shared public space for private use. Therefore, the 2MEGW will be a new urban policy that complements the development of this sidewalk project.
Another concern is the potential loss of informal parking or local vendor space. Finding a free plot of land such as a school or other vacant land to be temporary parking is one solution.
In terms of cost, collaborative green cells are relatively low-budget compared to large-scale infrastructure. Initial expenses include community workshops, temporary materials, planting, and basic street furniture.
Parting message
Collaborative green cells act like restorative molecules to reactivate existing sidewalks bringing them to life with local character, creating safer spaces for people – especially women and children – to freely walk around, and strengthening social connectivity and the economy. By embedding stakeholder engagement, shared governance, and cultural programming into the 2MEGW framework, walkable streets become more than physical paths; they become platforms for social life, economic opportunity, and environmental resilience.
Commentary 02 demonstrates that the success of the 2MEGW concept lies not only in design but in people. When residents, local authorities, and institutions work together, small pilot projects can grow into a citywide network of livable streets. This approach lays the foundation for a more inclusive, walkable, and dignified Phnom Penh—one green cell at a time.
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