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Opinion: Siem Reap Deserves Better Than a Copy-Paste Walking Street
- Mar 25
- 6 min read
Junior Research Fellow
Future Forum's junior research fellow, Keolakena Kin was published in The Cambodianess on March 25th, 2026. Check out the original article HERE, and read it below!
Siem Reap is at a turning point. Tourism is picking up again, the population is growing, and there’s increasing pressure to roll out quick fixes that people will immediately support. One idea gaining attention is Phnom Penh’s riverside walking street. It raises a fair question: should Siem Reap try something similar?
At first glance, it sounds appealing—more space for pedestrians, more business activity, more life along the river. But Siem Reap shouldn’t rush to copy what works in Phnom Penh. Recreating a walking street along the Siem Reap River could end up being a costly mistake.
What works in a dense, fast-moving capital doesn’t necessarily fit a city like Siem Reap, which has a different ecological setting, cultural meaning, and development path.
Instead of following a mass-tourism model, Siem Reap has a chance to take a different route. It can reimagine itself as a refined riverside city — one that prioritizes culture, learning, creativity, and a more thoughtful kind of growth.
A City with a Different Destiny
In the context of the Tourism Development Master Plan Siem Reap 2021-2035 (SR Master Plan), the Royal Government of Cambodia has a vision of an internationally-recognized destination with high standards of services, a rich diversity of resources, and a commitment to the preservation of heritage and resilience to climate change. The plan identifies the zones where the government would like to develop the tourism industry, ranging from Angkor and Phnom Kulen to Tonle Sap and the new Siem Reap.
Nevertheless, beneath this broad framework, there appears to be an evident blind spot that cannot be ignored. This is because the SR Master Plan remains rooted in the dominant tourism paradigm with an almost-exclusive focus on short-stay tourism visitors, tourist circuits, hotels, and entertainment facilities while largely ignoring the emerging trend of long-stay global talent visitors including women professionals, researchers, and families.
But this is also an important oversight. Cities that succeed in the coming decade will nurture knowledge, creativity, and quality of life, not large crowds. Siem Reap, with its rich cultural heritage, and stunning natural beauty, is well-positioned to become the first truly congenial intellectual and cultural capital of Southeast Asia, were it to focus more on meaningful development that supports safety, inclusivity, and everyday liveability.
Why the Walking Street Model Fails Siem Reap
The idea behind a walking street is not bad in itself. In Phnom Penh, a walking street is a natural development in a crowded city where business, nightlife, and other activities have long been going on along the riverfront.
In Siem Reap, the riverfront is a very different proposition altogether—a vulnerable ecological strip, a heritage city spine, and an everyday public space used by residents, families and informal workers but not an entertainment strip.
Firstly, the walking street idea is driven more by imitation than urban logic. As discussed previously, literature on urban planning highlights the dangers of “policy transfer without contextualization” whereby popular schemes are adopted without considering their suitability to the context and conditions in a particular city.
Siem Reap is traditionally a tranquil and green oasis conducive to contemplation. A night market-style pedestrian zone could turn the waterway into just another generic shopping area, weakening its role as a shared public space, particularly for women, elderly and children.
Secondly, walking streets have a tendency to encourage low-value mass tourism. Eventually, these areas are likely to become characterized by cheap kiosks, noise, rubbish, and overcrowding—phenomena that are commonly seen in heritage towns such as Chiang Mai, Phuket Town in Thailand. Such environments often marginalize local residents, especially elderly, women vendors, while increasing unpaid care burdens and creating spaces that are unsafe or exclusionary.
Thirdly, the environmental cost will be high. Riverbanks are ecological areas of high sensitivity. Increased footfall, artificial lighting, and paved areas of concrete, will have damaging effects on the environment, particularly in cities where the effects of climate change have already taken their toll.
Lastly, a "copy-paste" walking street design also runs the risk of losing the character of the place. A pedestrian street design is incompatible with the cultural landscape of the Angkor setting. The character of the place in Siem Reap, such as its atmosphere of serenity, its greenery, its unhurried pace, cannot be sustained if the temptation of imitation is pursued.
What Siem Reap Actually Needs
If Siem Reap wants a future, the debate should not be about whether a walking street should be developed, but rather what kind of city it should become in 2030.
The Siem Reap River provides a rare opportunity to design a “highbrow cultural corridor” – a public space intended not for noisy consumption but for learning, creativity, and sociability. Urban studies highlight the value of “slow public spaces” in promoting mental well-being, sociability, and long-term residence.
Such an environment will focus on the provision of shady walks, river banks, reading zones, and quiet environments. These environments are particularly important for women, the elderly, children and people with disabilities, who are often excluded from loud, and commercialized public space.
At the same time, the river can accommodate zones for creativity, co-working zones, coffee zones, and small-scale music zones. It is not about elitism, but urban quality; not high noise, but high aesthetics; not night market, but public culture.
Learning from Heritage Cities
However, the town of Siem Reap does not need to start from scratch. There are many heritage cities, e.g., Kyoto in Japan, and Oxford in England, which could provide some instructive examples.
The city of Kyoto carefully maintains the riverbanks as a peaceful cultural landscape, highlighting the beauty of the seasons while carefully controlling the incursion of commerce. Similarly, the world reputation of Oxford city is based, not on the creation of entertainment areas, but on the presence of libraries, colleges, and public spaces designed for reflection and intellectual debate.
These cities prove that heritage preservation, innovation, and gender-inclusive liveability are not exclusive concepts. They also prove that attracting global talent including women scholars and families requires more than advanced infrastructure – good public spaces and culture matter too.
Beyond Tourism: A Community of Talent
Imagining the river is therefore intrinsically linked to the broader transformation of Siem Reap. The city needs to move away from a tourism-based economy to one where talent development is encouraged. From the empirical evidence regarding talent mobility across the globe, it is clear that digital nomads, scholars, and creative folk seek more than just connectivity.
It is, therefore, recommended that investment be channeled towards libraries, cultural centers, and learning centers like the Siem Reap Academy, as well as the construction of an international-standard university. The Center for Khmer Studies is an example of how long-stay scholars can be beneficial to the city.
Another factor to be included in urban policy is adaptive reuse. For instance, vacant buildings, which were a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, could be reused to create co-living spaces that are affordable and safe. These spaces could then empower women entrepreneurs, support care-friendly work, and strengthen local resilience.
A Choice that Will Define the City
The future path that Siem Reap will take will entirely depend on the choices that are made in the present. A walking street, while creating a temporary buzz, could result in a long-term dissipation of identity. A riverside community that is of high quality, on the other hand, would not only fulfill the aspirations of the SR Master Plan with regard to sustainability, heritage, and high-quality tourism, but would also respond to the need for gender-sensitive and inclusive spaces.
By 2030, Siem Reap can be more than a gateway to Angkor—it can stand on its own as a city defined by thoughtful public spaces and a deep sense of civic pride. But that future depends on a clear choice: authenticity over imitation.
The river should not be reshaped to follow trends, but carefully restored in ways that honor its history, protect its ecology, and serve the people who live alongside it. Done right, this is how Siem Reap sets itself apart—not by copying others, but by becoming unmistakably itself, and building a future that truly lives up to its past.
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