The Things We Missed Out In City Planning
Urbanization perhaps is a positive thing to do, to draw up a city so that the government can effectively allocate the places correctly for the development of the Nation, sometimes however, when over indulging in slicing up the city, the government forgot to touch up what’s done previously
Since Independence in 1965, one of the government’s policies was to achieve economy stability for this young nation. Naturally, Singapore will have to be thrown onto the drawing board to be drawn up and allocated places for certain activities, just like Sir Stanford Raffles work in the olden days1. Some of the places became industrial areas of what we seen today, Jurong ,Sungi Kadut, Woodlands, as well as the newer Ubi area which holds much of the light industries and offices. In the recent years there has been a new “breed” of industries popping up in Singapore, first we have the Science Parks from 1980s2, as well as recent years, in which perhaps most people have not heard about is the establishment of Biopolis and Fusionpolis.3
Somehow things are going good, the path towards a fully knowledge based economy was right with the Science Parks, and now Biopolis and Fusionpolis, there was also the idea of One North, that integrates living together into an industrial park.4 So it looks nice on these places, what about places that contributed to the economy initially and brought Singapore to what it is today?5
The inaccessibility of Industrial Areas
Singapore today still has a sizeable manufacturing industry, based on the stats; Singapore has a total investment of 16,083 million dollars in local manufacturing industries by investors.6 However, we didn’t see any developments of such industrial areas to a more high tech area like what One-North is. Based on personal experience, as I have been a temporary employee at Science Park 2, transportation services such as bustops are abundant; in fact there is even a transitlink bus service that travels within the Science Park7, suitable for the working population for their daily commute. An industrial area however, does not have such luxury, particularly in Sungei Kadut, one has to drop off the bus and walk all the way into their workplace. If a bus service can be catered for Science park, why can’t a bus service be catered for service for Sungei Kadut industrial area? For readers that don’t know where is Sungei Kadut, it is the large industrial place that you see out of the window in the MRT on your way from Yew Tee to Kranji. Perhaps it is not possible for that to happen, or more likely we have focus too much on the infrastructure of new industries, or is it that it was purposely left behind? Did we forget about the welfare of the people that work at these industrial areas?
The View towards Foreign Construction Laborers
The very recent issue of the building of a dormitory within Serangoon Gardens, in which residents were concerned about security as there will be construction laborers, however turns out to be that the government is intending to house manufacturing workers. This sort of appeased the residents as they assume that manufacturing workers would be females and less “aggressive”.8 the concern about construction worker’s committing crime was actually quite groundless. The police force main concern currently does not include them at all.9 This incident not only showcased the discrimination of Singaporeans towards foreign construction laborers, but also the fact that Singaporeans still see them as not part of the ever globalised Singapore society. However there are yet many dormitories that housed them but just that they are not as glamorously showcased in news and reports, like what the One-North has. I am sure one wouldn’t notice a dorm for construction workers when it was actually built like a condo by the government. There was one such at Bukit Batok, just beside the bus bay. In my perspective the general Singaporean public had some discrimination that all foreign construction workers are aggressive and will resort to crime whenever they have the chance, as well as the lack of media coverage that they had actually been living amongst us for a very long time. It is as if they are not part of us. On the other hand, the Fusionpolis, Biopolis and One-North concept was so much so covered by the media, to the extent that buses carrying employees of such hubs to popular lunch locations, introduced them to the public that they existed in the Singaporean society, that is they are foreigners but are part of us. Did we forget to include them into our society?
In my perspective, in the effective planning of the city, the focus would not just be on what is in trend at the moment; it is but a holistic approach to plan and to improve things at the same time. When somebody is left behind, social problems and issues would surface. In the issue regarding construction workers for example, it is clear that Singaporeans could not accept them at all; they would at the moment, still considered outside of this urban city’s society.
Citations
1. Raffles Town Plan – Ministry Of Education Singapore (http://www1.moe.edu.sg/learn@/singaporerivertrail/sec/G041_Dunman_Sec/raffles_town_plan.htm)
2. Our History, 1980s – Economic Development Board, Singapore (http://www.sedb.com/edb/sg/en_uk/index/about_us/our_history/the_1980s.html)
3. Singapore Investment News 2003 on the establishment of Fusionpolis – Economic Development Board, Singapore (http://www.sedb.com/edb/sg/en_uk/index/news_room/publications/singapore_investment03/singapore_investment6/fusionpolis_where.html)
4. One-North introduction, JTC Corporation (http://www.one-north.sg/aboutus_introduction.aspx)
5. Our History, 1960s – Economic Development Board, Singapore (http://www.sedb.com/edb/sg/en_uk/index/about_us/our_history/the_1960s.html)
6. Statistics Table on Manufacturing, Singapore Page 13 – Singapore Statistics Board (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos/statsT-manufacturing.pdf)
7. Bus Enquiry – Transitlink, Singapore (http://www.transitlink.com.sg/)
8. MP Meets Serangoon Gardens residents on dormitory decision – Yahoo! Singapore News (http://sg.news.yahoo.com/cna/20081005/tap-263-mp-meets-serangoon-gardens-resid-231650b.html)
9. Key Crime Concerns – Singapore Police Force (http://www.spf.gov.sg/stats/statsmidyr2008_keycrime.htm)
