What should future cities look like? Cities in the Global South often emulate cities in the Global North when it comes to imagining the future, but the applicability of that model to cities in southeast Asia is disputable. This paper argues that the neo-colonial model of knowledge flow, in which southeast Asian cities are passive learners, is deficient. Instead of adaptation to the North's over ambitious visions of the future, cities in the Global South should propose and promote alternative ideas of development that are more applicable to their contexts.