Global city making in Singapore: a real estate perspective

‘Global city’ is a notion popularly cited among planning academics and practitioners in describing some strategic places in the world economy. Pioneer researchers in this area define global cities as basing points of capital in a world economy (Friedmann, 1986: 71); production centres of specialized information services such as financial services, media services, educational and health services, and centres of tourism (Hall, 1998: 24); and centres for servicing and financing international trade, investment and headquarters operations (Sassen, 2004: 171). Summarizing those perspectives and recognizing the influence of a new economy, which can be characterized as informational, global and networked (Castells, 2000: 27), global cities can be seen as the urban nodes where globalization materializes so that they are (1) highly concentrated command points in the organization of the world economy; (2) key locations for finance and specialized service firms; (3) sites of production of innovation; (4) markets for the products and innovations produced (Sassen, 2001: 3 and 4). Taylor (2004) has argued that these perspectives involve understanding just the attributes of cities and suggests that the key roles of global city are shaped by the relationships and connections they have with the rest of the world. He illustrates a hierarchy of cities reflecting such relationships by analyzing the location of advanced producer service firms and produces. Olds and Yeung (2004) provide a comprehensive coverage of other literature in global city research, showing it has followed three tracks, i.e. characteristics of global/world cities, especially their internal structures; processes creating global/world cities, especially those associated with operation, relations and networks of transnational corporations; and governance issues and implications, including the role of the state.

Even with this substantial research heritage, the idea of ‘global’ cities remains speculative (Douglass, 2000, Taylor, 2000, Short, 2004). However, that has not stopped it from becoming a meaningful issue for many city governments, and municipal officials often take it as a primary task to attract of the production, financial and consumption flows associated with globalization into their cities (Harvey, 1989: 11). This task is addressed because it is believed that success in attracting global activity may signify the importance of a city in the global economic network (as a control node), the high level of development it has accomplished (seen in its advanced economy, and a heavy presence of R&D), and also the quality of life it can offer (high income, large market and variety of commodity supply). Being ranked as a global city may also be helpful towards building up a competitive advantage which could generate further development.

Though many policies and programs in numerous cities around the world are framed by goals to acquire or reinforce some form of global city status, much of the literature on global cities has paid little attention to global city making. These points are echoed in the writings of several authors, such as Robinson, 2002, Douglass, 2000. Notwithstanding, due to lack of clarity, many cities have allocated tremendous resources to some mega projects such as world class airports, high-speed tram lines, convention centres and sites for world spectacles (Douglass, 2000: 45) to maintain or enhance global city roles. The Multimedia Corridor Project in Malaysia, the Pudong mega urban development in Shanghai, the new Hong Kong Airport and the expansion of the CBD in Singapore are examples in Pacific-Asia (Bunnell, 1999, Wu, 2000).

The pressures created by these aspirations have posed a new challenge to urban planners. This is largely because there is no ready-to-use model available for what could be called global city making. In approaching global city making, urban planners are presented with three sets of challenges: the redefinition of a global hierarchy of cities resulting from competition among global rivals for economic development; the impact of economic globalization within the world cities and the creation of a ‘new spatial order’, leading to the creation of new zones, and economic and spatial polarization (which may or may not favor the city); and finally the environmental consequences associated with the sustainability of concentrating development in a few world cities (Newman and Thornley, 2002: 22). It is worth recognizing that the old agenda of cities such as economic inequality, social exclusion, and poor quality local environment remain a concern and a global city role may in fact exacerbate some of these basic problems (Thornley and Rydin, 2002: 6). Finally, the management and delivery of policy (along with the connections between the public and private sector) is not well understood in this new global city context, as outlined in Olds and Yeung (2004) review cited earlier. On that perspective, Short (2004: 28) has recently observed ‘while…much of the early work on regime theory was concerned with the internal dynamics of power sharing amongst disparate groups in the city, it is important to reconstruct urban regime theories to account for globalization effects’ and signals major contribution made by Lauria (1997). Hence, cities are dealing with a complex concept that has been expressed in a variety of ways in local political pressure and concern and at the same time, there is a lack of understanding of the appropriate actions to take. This monograph is designed to provide some insight on those circumstances by exploring the actions that have been taken in shaping the built environment of Singapore, one city that most analysis awards global city status.

This monograph is about the planning and development of Singapore's built environment associated with the goal of reinforcing its global city role. Over the last 40 years, Singapore was transformed successfully from a colonial port city dominated by dilapidated housing and crowded commercial streets, into a global metropolis with glittering office towers, modern industrial estates and high standard housing blocks and neighborhoods. The notion of being global has been a part of Singapore's development strategy over this period, beginning with its early years of industrialization (Marshall, 2003: 154). From the outset, Singapore positioned itself a gateway between Southeast Asia and the international economy (Perry et al., 1997: 102). A strategy of export-oriented growth through the attraction of foreign investment was adopted in the mid-1960s. In 1972, the general development strategy was established within the concept of ‘Singapore—the global city’ (Lim, 1990: 150). In 1988, the Economic Development Board set an explicit goal for Singapore to become an important strategic node of global companies for the Asia-Pacific region (EDB, 1988: 12). The Concept Plan 1991 spelt clearly a vision for Singapore to become a global city of tropical excellence (URA, 1991). This vision continued in the Concept Plan 2001, targeting at the creation of a world-class city in the 21st century (Concept Plan 2001, www.ura.gov.sg accessed on 23 July 2004). Consistent efforts in grasping global opportunities for economic development earned Singapore well ranked positions among international business centres.

Today, Singapore is widely acknowledged as a global city by many authors (Friedmann and Wolff, 1982, Dicken, 1992, Taylor, 2000). Its successful urban development also earned Singapore various titles such as the ‘garden city’ and the ‘intelligent island’. Some planners refer Singapore as a best practice in planned development (Ooi, 2000). As a global city, Singapore is a main regional command centre, where a large number of production service firms and headquarters of multinational corporations reside in its modern Downtown (Ho, 1998). Within the island nation, its Downtown hosted more than 96% of the head offices of offshore and merchant banks in the island state, and more than 80% of those commercial banks were located in the Golden Shoe—Singapore's Central Business District (Chua, 1989: 95), illustrating in vivid terms one of the internal structural features of a global city. Singapore is also an innovation centre where its industries and the economy have experienced continuous restructuring, reflected in the evolution on the planning, development and management of industrial and business parks. Singapore's housing system provides a variety of housing forms to cater to different housing needs, such as those for expatriates working for multinational corporations and those for low-income groups. Yet, the system allows free upward moving from one housing form to another in order to meet peoples' aspiration of raising their living standards. Especially, interesting in the housing system is public housing development, which is interwoven into local politics, income redistribution and nation-building (Phang, 1996, Chua, 2000, Kong, 2000, Kong and Yeoh, 2003, Sim).

In policy formulation and application, Singapore's success in global city making is linked to what Khan's (1997: 95 and 96) review of models (explaining the success of the newly industrialized economies in East Asia) labeled as the ‘governed market’. A fundamental component in this model is a set of policies, which enable the government to guide or govern the process of resource allocation. These policies are found in several areas such as population control, housing, education, medical and health services, compulsory savings, industrial relations, wage policy, and so on. In addition, Khan (1997) argued that it was not the intervention from the state but the effectiveness of the intervention that differentiated Singapore from other developing countries. The factors that contributed to the effectiveness included autonomy of the state from interest groups; stability of state apparatus and the society; and the administrative capability of the government leaders. This approach means that the management of the nation's interest in a wide array of concerns like macro level processes and institutions such as international politics, global and regional trade blocs and incentives for transnational corporations are critical to its global city making.

However, the research reported here explores the ‘governed market’ as it has been expressed in operational know-how centred on issues associated with land use changes, planning and plan implementations. The analysis emphasizes the making of the Downtown, the industrial estates and the housing landscape, which are directly associated with business control and services, innovations and manufacturing, and social geography of the built environment. It recognizes but takes as given, the importance of the technical management of urban sub-systems such as infrastructure (e.g. transportation network, water and power supplies, drains), amenities (e.g. parks and open spaces) and services (e.g. the commercial hierarchies). Though essential and significant to the functioning of modern cities, they are excluded from this monograph in the interest of simplicity.

The core questions the research addresses are: How has Singapore's business core, which was crowded with dilapidated shop-houses, been transformed into a modern Downtown? What type of industrial spaces have been built and why? How has the housing system contributed to global city making in Singapore? The above questions are explored from a real estate perspective by emphasizing the tangible and intangible aspects associated with the built environment. Ling and Archer (2005: 3) list three fundamental ways that the real estate intersects the issues we are dealing with here: (1) to identify the tangible assets of land and buildings; (2) to denote the ‘bundle’ of rights that are associated with the ownership and use of the physical assets; (3) to refer to the industry or business activities related to the acquisition, operation, and disposition of the physical assets. In Singapore, discussions on the tangible assets of land and buildings in global city making involved the physical forms and the values of the built environment, including the areal extent and evolution of the Downtown; the types of industrial parks; and the variety of housing forms. The discussions on the bundle of rights that are associated with the ownership and use of the physical assets emphasize on land ownership control; the planning framework; and the main organizations dealing with land. The various real estate activities such as land acquisition, planning and asset management are the components of the transformation processes, being the development of a modern Downtown, or the industrial estates, or the residential blocks, neighborhoods and new towns.

Studies on the real estate development processes in city wide urban dynamics have used four models: Equilibrium Models; Event Sequence Models; Agency Models; Structure Models (Healey, 1991). This monograph adopts the Event Sequence Model, which focuses on the management of stages in the development processes. These sequences can be generalized into a few simple stages or involve a comprehensive list of activities, as outlined by Ratcliffe et al. (2003: 252 and 253). In the research carried out on projects in this monograph, the event sequence includes concept and initial considerations; planning; implementation issues; and management issues. In addition, financing will be discussed where appropriate, e.g. financing housing construction and purchase.

There are six chapters in this monograph. Chapter 2 discusses the institutions associated with land acquisition and planning. These are the intangible aspects of the built environment, dealing with the bundle of rights in real estate. By reading this chapter readers get a background of the institutional setup, which serves as a context for understanding the transformations of the Downtown, the industrial parks and the housing, which are following. Chapter 3 examines the planning and development of Singapore's Downtown where head offices of banks and other financial institutions, regional headquarters of transnational corporations, government organs, and international convention facilities have located. Chapter 4 focuses on the development of the various industrial estates. The different types of estates and the reasons for creating them are discussed in relation to Singapore's industrialization policies. Chapter 5 explores the housing system, the development of the various housing forms, sociopolitical engineering in public housing estates, and the role of housing in the global city making. Chapter 6 concludes by over-viewing the Singapore way of global city making; the progress and innovations in urban planning and development in the urban development process; and the possible lessons that Singapore can offer to other cities in global city making.