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Developmental Urbanisation in Singapore and South Korea

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Community-Based Urban Development

Part of the book series: Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements ((ACHS))

Abstract

The chapter discusses the origins and rise of the developmental state in Singapore and South Korea during and after the 1960s and its impact on urban development. In pursuing growth-first economic policy, the developmental state has initially seen urban development as an instrument of rapid economic growth, which also applies to transformation of residential areas. The early housing projects of the Housing and Development Board in Singapore and Joint Redevelopment Project in Seoul are compared in this chapter to better understand developmental urbanisation in each city. These cases reveal important differences between transformation of residential areas in Singapore and Seoul. Developmental state in Singapore has firmly controlled urban development and provided housing for the vast majority of the population, where the Housing and Development Board played the key role. In this way, urban development became an instrument of social integration and has strengthened political legitimacy of the state. While urban development in South Korea was also important for the rapid economic growth of the country, it was less controlled, largely driven by the market and with little concerns about social integration. Joint Redevelopment Project in Seoul, which was based on alliance between the developmental state and large corporations, has become a source of social tensions and economic polarisation in the city. Despite these differences, developmental state in Singapore and South Korea has largely excluded citizens and civil society from taking part in urban development. This seems to be a major characteristic and similarity between developmental urbanisation in Singapore and South Korea.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    US economic and military assistance to South Korea alone has reached more than 12 billion USD from 1947 till 1976, which was twice as much as the entire US aid for the African continent during the same period (Pirie 2008).

  2. 2.

    President Park Chung-hee himself also took an active role in this highly repressive state apparatus of the Japanese colonial state as a young and ambitious lieutenant, serving the Manchukuo Imperial Army.

  3. 3.

    Tampines is the site where HDB test-bedded the most recent community participatory planning initiative Hello Neighbour. This will be elaborated in Chap. 4.

  4. 4.

    HDB’s various upgrading programmes will be discussed in detail in Chap. 3.

  5. 5.

    The name Seoul originates from ancient Korean words Seorabeol or Seobeol, which means the ‘capital city’ (Clark and Clark 1969).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Cho Im Sik

  2. Graduate School of Urban Studies, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

    Blaž Križnik

  3. Institute for Spatial Policies, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Blaž Križnik

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  1. Cho Im Sik
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  2. Blaž Križnik
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Correspondence to Cho Im Sik .

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Im Sik, C., Križnik, B. (2017). Developmental Urbanisation in Singapore and South Korea. In: Community-Based Urban Development. Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1987-6_2

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