When Singapore became independent in Singapore in 1965, the state embarked on an economic programme of industrialization. Urbanization and its public housing policy was the main means to accomplish this. Farming was seen as having low value and removed, and the population was moved into Housing Development Board flats to pressure them to work in wage-paying jobs, instead of being able to rely on their families’ welfare, and so as to pay off their house installments. The arrival of new towns meant the arrival of the now standard spatial separation between places of work leisure and home. About 90% of the population lives in HDB flats today.
Established settlements which had to be demolished in order to make land available for new housing estates were justified by an ideology that ‘land is scarce’ in Singapore. Communities of urban squatters or semi-rural villages tended to be racially homogenous, for example Malay kampongs or Chinese shophouses. Destruction of these estates meant the destruction of ‘racial’ residential areas and their attendant cultural practices (Chua and Kuo, 1995). The dispersions have the worst consequences for minority groups. Since quotas for each of the three races for each HDB block are controlled, this deprives minority groups of certain social supports that can be fulfilled by their respective members. For example, working Malay Muslim parents find it difficult to entrust childcare responsibilities to non-Malays because of stringent rules on food and gender relations. But this is justified by the state’s interest to encourage inter-racial understanding.
As with other urbanized countries, we can also observe the class inequality in different urbanized areas of Singapore.
Although HDB flats look similar from the outside, if one looks within the blocks, different estates house different types of residents. Chinatown, more specifically Kreta Ayer, though beside the Central Business District, retains its population of elderly and poor people, setting a contrast. I also see similar circumstances of destitution in Tiong Bahru, Whampoa and Kallang. Along Kallang River, there are even vagrants who sleep on benches and bathe in public toilets.
One also observes that the best schools which cater to a lot of the upper class are situated in the Bukit Timah area, while neighbourhood schools are located in the heartlands and cater to the middle and working classes’ children’s educational needs, further exemplifying the concept of core and periphery.
A characteristic of urbanization is the immigration of people from the rural areas to the city. In Singapore’s case, foreigners come to Singapore to work. Expatriates are treated with envy and resentment, while blue-collar workers from South Asia are looked down on.
Foreign workers usually live in dormitories in industrial areas such as Tuas, Woodlands and Kaki Bukit. But in September, the Government’s plan to site a dormitory for foreign workers in the private estate of Serangoon Gardens caused a major furore among its residents. They described the move as one that will “create security and social problems and spoil the ambience of the estate” and petitioned to protest against the plan. In the end, the state compromised by giving the dormitory space to male and female workers from the manufacturing and service industries rather than the construction sector, and constructing a $2-million road that is away from the estate. This shows Singaporeans’ intolerance for blue collar workers. Even though Singaporeans know they are needed to build our houses and roads, they prefer to be ignorant when it comes to providing shelter, a basic human necessity, for these people.
References
Chua Beng Huat and Eddie Kuo. 1995 “The Making of a New Nation: Cultural Construction and National Identity”, in Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore. London: Routledge, pp 114
Lim, Lydia. 7 September 2008, “Why I did not sign the petition”, The Sunday Times, pg 4, Singapore Press Holdings
Tan Dawn Wei. 12 October 2008, “The ‘Them And Us’ Divide”, The Sunday Times, pg 27, Singapore Press Holdings
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