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The book Beyond the Port City: Development and Identity in 21st Century Singapore by G. L. Ooi and B. J. Shaw is reviewed.
GeoJournal (2006) 66:377378 DOI 10.1007/s10708-006-9032-1
G. L. Ooi and B. J. Shaw, Beyond the Port City: Development and Identity in 21st Century Singapore
Prentice Hall, Singapore, 2004, 184 pp
Roy Jones
Published online: 26 October 2006 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006
As one of the worlds few remaining city-states, Singapore would be an idiosyncratic place even without its distinctive ethnic mix and political structures. It is also passing through interesting times following the recent Asian economic crisis and the exacerbation of political and cultural tensions following 9/11 and the War on Terror. It is in these contexts that the authors set out to provide an applied historical geography of Singapore which describes the evolution of its economy, society and polity from those of a colonial port city, assesses its current situation as an afuent and diverse developmental state (p. 3) in a rapidly changing region and considers the prospects for its future beyond (what they contend to be) a contemporary crossroads (p. 9).
The subject categorisation of this book as Economics on the publishers website is therefore rather misleading. As the full title suggests, and as the authors argue in their introductory chapter, the book is generally preoccupied with the constitution of social identities and specically with the Singapore identity given the development of its political economy (p. 11). Here, and throughout the volume, they therefore con-
trast the hegemonic narratives (p. 9) of the colonial port city, which operated for the benet of the imperial power and treated the ethnically diverse population on a divide and rule basis, and of the contemporary independent nation state as it attempts to set and to modify its own developmental goals.
Chapter 2 therefore traces the early nineteenth century historical processes whereby Singapore displaced its rivals, such as Penang and Malacca, to become the regions, pre-eminent port before considering the ports more contemporary constraints and competitors. Chapter 3 concentrates on the post independence drives for modernisation and westernisation, emphasising the extent to which little exists without planning in Singapore (p. 35) and to which social and environmental amenity have been preserved and, indeed, improved over several decades of rapid economic and industrial growtha salutary reminder to societies pursuing more free market models of economic development. But this chapter also emphasises the relative lack of public involvement in political decision-making and of local identity in a state committed to integration with the global economy.
Chapter 4 considers these omissions in the context of Singapores (multi) ethnic policies, contrasting the segregated residential patterns of the colonial city with the deliberately integrated housing policies of the modern state and demon-
R. Jones (&)
Faculty of Media, Society and Culture, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, WA, Australiae-mail: [email protected]
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strating how ethnic differences have been managed ... in programmes to pre-empt their politicisation (p. 63). This theme is further developed in Chapter 5, The Politics of Control: Making Good Citizens. It describes the trajectory from the elimination of popular politics in the 1960s, through the increase in the power of the bureaucracy in the 1970s to the creation of, in Castells terms, a developmental state, in which the state is the lead actor, economic development is the end and political stability (achieved through the ongoing dominance of the governing Peoples Action Party) is the means, by the 1980s. However, this chapter also describes how governance, particularly at the local level, has become a technical exercise that has become more spatially and socially relevant to planners than to residents. Indeed this lack of civic engagement is posited as a major element of the crossroads at which Singapore is, it is claimed, currently situated.
Chapter 6 provides an alternative perspective on the issues raised in the preceding chapters though an insightful juxtaposition of the housing and electoral geographies of Singapore, illustrating how the developmental goal of achieving socio-economic mix within housing developments impacts upon identity by preventing the establishment of ethnic enclaves and thus upon the electoral system by dispersing and disempowering the ethnic vote.
Chapter 7, subtitled Ship Chandlers and Bankers, traces Singapores transformation from an ex-imperial shipping and manufacturing hub to a global centre of commerce, communications and air transport. However, this transformation has also increased the ethnic and socio economic diversity of the Singaporean (resident) population as its economic success attracts increasing numbers of expatriate professionals and domestic and construction workers. It has also changed the planning and urban development imperatives, since centres of global commerce and, still more so, centres of global tourism benet from the possession of distinctive place identities and, therefore, from the distinctive cultural, historical
and environmental characteristics which give rise to such identities. Chapter 8 therefore considers several examples of how place identities have been generated, fought for and, on occasion, preserved in Singapore and, in the process, it documents rare examples of successful political resistance and civic engagement. Indeed not only do the authors see heritage and identity issues as a possible basis for the revival of civic society(p. 137) in Singapore, but they conclude the book by contending that Singapore must both discover an ethnic and cultural identity and sell this identity on the global market if it is to succeed in the new millennium.
In a minor way this volume likewise lacks an identity insofar as it uses terms such as kilometers and programmes to such an extent that it is unclear which variant of English (Singlish?) it purports to use. Furthermore, while the publisher claims that this work is intended for both a Singaporean and an international audience, it can often demand a degree of local knowledge (e.g. on the nature of the verandah riots or the 25% quota in schools) which may not be possessed by an international readership. Such a readership would also benet from the more generous provision of maps and photographs.
However, these are detailed criticisms. Both Singaporean and international readers should also appreciate the scholarship that is evident from the effective and imaginative integration of a mass of detailed academic and archival material from Singapore with an impressive range of sources from the global literature on global and port cities and, indeed, on urban studies more generally. In the best traditions of historical geography, this volume succeeds in combining a wide range of economic, political, social and environmental information in order to provide valuable insights into the evolution of a place. What makes it particularly valuable, both within and beyond Singapore, are the ways in which these retrospective views are also used to identify signicant concerns relating to the countrys present and its future.
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