By: William Ti jr.
The City of Makati is the premier central business district (CBD) and financial center of the Philippines. This city grew from Col. Joseph McMicking’s vision of the first masterplanned business district in the country. This continuing collaboration between Ayala Corp. and the City of Makati has served as an enduring template for the development of new cities and townships throughout the metropolis.
The Makati CBD is centered on Ayala Avenue, home to the country’s premier financial and commercial institutions. This street is anchored by Ayala Triangle, which used to be the first international airport in the country. Today it is being redeveloped by Ayala Land with the new Ayala Triangle Tower Two anchoring this heart of Makati.
As Makati continues to evolve and adopt to the needs of its people, it has gradually changed to accommodate ground level activities with street fronting retail and increased pedestrian connectivity. This has allowed it to present a friendlier, more accessible urbanity to its growing population.
Makati faces multiple challenges as it strives to remain the prime commercial center of the metropolis. Metro Manila has evolved into a polycentric city with various commercial centers in its different component cities. Each of them provides more affordable land and housing prices or have broader and larger populations.
Makati’s daytime population almost doubles with the influx of workers every day. The imbalance between housing stock and jobs has led to massive gridlocks during rush hours.
This is further exacerbated by the pioneer residential subdivisions that hem in the city center and limits access to and from the rest of the city. It continues to turn its back to the Pasig River from which it grew and through which it is connected to the rest of Metro Manila.
All these challenges combined with the changing times, mean that Makati must continue to reinvent itself to better serve not just its own residents but all the other communities to which it is intrinsically connected. A better Makati is coming about. As the city matures and accumulates layers of history and character, it will come to grow into a more vibrant and storied part of the metropolis.
The gleaming glass towers and wide avenues of Makati continue to capture the aspirations of the young professionals. Therein lies the opportunity to redefine what the future of our built environment can be.
Makati, and with it Ayala, continues to shape the ideas of how a modern Filipino city should be throughout our archipelago. It is the golden mirror that reflects what our cities can be. A better tomorrow would show a much more human and sustainable reflection for our future.
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