ARI Working Paper Series

This working paper shows how place-making, community formation and collective decision making are forged as part of the lesser known aspects of the larger Singapore’s story of urbanization and multiculturalism. Through a case study of a local public housing community which spans from the late 1980s until today, it shows how dimensions of inter-ethnic and other social and cultural relations and practices are developed as residents live side by side and share common spaces in everyday life and on special occasions. Their interactions in such contexts are potent sites which tell a more complex story of deeper structures of inter-ethnic conviviality, mutual-respect and learning as well as tensions, prejudices, and frustrations.

The paper also shows how living in close proximity over time has matured public housing residents into more collective communities as they forge their own sense of place and community, learn how to better respect, tolerate and negotiate ethno-cultural differences, as well as negotiate with authorities on their preferred needs and desires. It concludes with a discussion on two dimensions of Singapore as a place – heritage and participation in decision- and place-making by ordinary citizens, in neighbourhoods built and regulated by the state.

Full text is not available, this working paper is withdrawn, as it has now been published as `A Neighbourhood in Singapore: Ordinary People’s Lives “Downstairs’, in Future Asian Space: Projecting the Urban Space of New East Asia, edited by Limin Hee, Davisi Boontharm & Erwin Viray, NUS Press, 2012.