Abstract
In the study of the reproduction of state power through urban space, more attention has been paid to how states organize urban space to construct the disciplined subject than the converse of how states cultivate subjects who reproduce the material and symbolic significance of the built environment. Using the case study of public housing in the developmental state of Singapore, I argue that states attempt to shape how inhabitants navigate and interpret the built environment by constructing spatial-political subjects who reproduce state hegemony through internalized mental and emotional schemas towards urban space. I analyze fifty years (1972—2021) and nearly 700 issues of periodicals by Singaporean housing authorities to illustrate two distinct phases of spatial-political subject formation which corresponded to deliberate shifts in the physical sites of state legitimacy. In the two decades following independence, the ruling People’s Action Party sought legitimacy for its program of slum clearance and public housing “New Town” construction, and accordingly cultivated the modern urban resident oriented towards the rationally-planned New Town and the high-rise apartment. Faced with political opposition in the mid-eighties but having already housed 80% of Singapore, the PAP then shifted the stakes of legitimacy towards the maintenance of existing common areas and cultivated the sociable urban citizen who equated ongoing municipal maintenance with ruling party provision while actively participating in state-sanctioned neighborhood activities. The following findings will illuminate an overlooked strategy in the state’s toolkit for reproducing its hegemony through urban space.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
Public record.
Notes
Housing and Development Board. (1973/1974). Annual Report, p.19.
Chow, W.F. (1989, July 19). Newsletters to Fill Residents In. The New Paper.
New Town Councils Quick to Create Own Identities. (1989, June 6). The Straits Times.
PAP: Sembawang Town Council, Tampines Town Council, Ang Mo Kio Town Council, East Coast-Fengshan Town Council, Marsiling-Yew Tee Town Council, Bishan-Toa Payoh Town Council. Opposition (Workers’ Party): Aljunied-Hougang Town Council.
Housing and Development Board. (1985/1986). Annual Report, p.4.
Housing and Development Board. (2019). Annual Report, p.8.
Housing and Development Board. (1976, August). Our Home, p.29.
Housing and Development Board. Annual Report. 1975/76 p.15.
Housing and Development Board. (1975, Jan/Feb). Our Home, p.32.
Housing and Development Board. (1976, August). Our Home, p.8.
Housing and Development Board. (1975, Jan/Feb). Our Home, p.32.
Housing and Development Board. (1985, October). Our Home, p.44.
Ibid.
Housing and Development Board. (October,1985). Our Home, p.45.
Housing and Development Board. (1983, February). Our Home, p.16.
Housing and Development Board. (1973, November/December). Our Home, p.13.
Housing and Development Board. (1977, February). Our Home, p.11.
Housing and Development Board. (1978, February). Our Home, p.26–27; Housing and Development Board. (1980, June). Our Home, p.6–7.
Housing and Development Board. (1972, December). Our Home, p.31.
Housing and Development Board. (1985/1986). Annual Report, p.4.
Why Town Councils are good for democracy—full text of speech by Mr Goh Chok Tong on Town Councils Bill. (1988, June 29). The Straits Times.
Town Councils Act (Chap. 329 A). N.d. https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/TCA1988.
The idea for pilot Town Councils was actually tentatively mooted by a PAP candidate a week before the fateful 1984 election, and framed as a platform for residents to be more involved in maintaining their neighborhoods (Chee, L.C. (1984, December 14). How about an Ang Mo Kio Town Council?—General Election ’84. Singapore Monitor.). However, it was the PAP’s two-seat loss that catalyzed its subsequent measures to formalize and institutionalize Town Councils in public housing estates across the country.
Why Town Councils are good for democracy—full text of speech by Mr Goh Chok Tong on Town Councils Bill. (1988, June 29). The Straits Times.
Ibid.
Chiam wants MPs to stay out of councils. (1988, June 30). The Business Times.
Town Councils: A good idea, a risk worth taking: Origins of the Team MP Concept—PM briefs newspaper editors. (1988, January 23). The Straits Times.
Badly-run councils won’t be bailed out–Dhana. Debate on the Town Councils Bill. (1988, June 30). The Straits Times.
Choose MPs who can improve and upgrade constituencies. (1996, November 21). The Straits Times.
Gan, A. (1995, August 14). Potong Pasir Estate Growing Jaded and in a sad state. The Straits Times.
Potong Pasir has been putting off repairs—Hng Kiang. (1996, December 21). The Straits Times.
Sim, C.Y. (2006, May 4). If run by WP, Aljunied will be “dismal like Hougang”. The Straits Times.
Chan, R. (2011, May 1). Aljunied is the only hot seat. The Straits Times.
Li, Z.Y. (2011, May 8). Reasons behind Aljunied Swing. The Straits Times.
Ng, J.S. (2019, October 11). How it all unfolded: The AHTC case in a nutshell. Today Online. https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/how-it-all-unfolded-ahtc-case-nutshell.
Chow, W.F. (1989, July 19). Newsletters to Fill Residents In. The New Paper.
This was calculated from the 2020 figures of 1,082,893 HDB dwelling units (HDB Annual Report 2020/21, P.12) being served by 17 Town Councils.
Housing and Development Board. (1982, August). Our Home, p.10.
Housing and Development Board. (1982, June). Our Home, p.20.
Bedok Town Council. (1993, February). Bedok Town Council News, p.5.
Ibid.
Potong Pasir Town Council. (1992, November/December). Potong Pasir: My Kind of Town, p.1.
Hougang Town Council. (2001). Hougang Review, p.1.
Ng, J.S. (2019, October 11.). How it all unfolded: The AHTC Case in a Nutshell. Today Online.https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/how-it-all-unfolded-ahtc-case-nutshell.
Tham, Y.C. (2019, November 21). AMK Town Council ex-GM jailed 27 months for bribery. The Straits Times.
People’s Association. (2021, April 22). About Us. https://www.pa.gov.sg/our-network/about-us.
Yang, C. (2019, October 21.) Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh, PA Grassroots Adviser Spar over Allegations of “Double Standards. The Straits Times.
Ooi, H.M. (2011, September 3). Forum Letter: The Straits Times.
Liak, T.K. (1988, June 29). Town Councils ‘a major contribution to democracy. The Straits Times.
Another significant and ubiquitous venue is the Residents’ Committee centre, located at the foot of every few apartment blocks; although RC centres tend to be used for smaller gatherings and are not featured as often in Town Council newsletters.
People’s Association. (2017). Locate CC. https://www.pa.gov.sg/our-network/community-clubs/locate-cc.
Aljunied-Hougang Punggol East Town Council. (2013, September). Good Neighbours, P.10–11.
The specific legislation governing printed publications is Newspaper and Printing Presses Act of 1974.
Zuraidah Ibrahim. (1995, February 18). Malays and grassroots bodies: Greater participation called for. Zuraidah Ibrahim. The Straits Times.
Chang, R. (2011, June 9.) PA plans new ways to extend outreach; Youth, private estate residents to be encouraged to engaged in grassroots activities: Minister. The Straits Times.
Nazeera Begam. (2019, May 20). Forum Letter: Youth actively involved in grassroots bodies. The Straits Times; Sim, D.C. (2019, May 15). Forum Letter: Grassroots bodies need new blood. The Straits Times.
“More seek out MPs as elections close in.” 2006, April 5. The Straits Times; “Mr. MP, can you please help me?” January 17, 1999. The Straits Times.
Our Tampines Hub opened in 2017, Heartbeat@Bedok opened in 2018, and Punggol Town Hub opened in 2021.
East Coast Town Council. (2018, March/April). East Coast News, p.3.
People’s Association. (2020). PAssion Card. https://www.pa.gov.sg/our-programmes/passion-card.
References
Anjaria, J. S. (2009). Guardians of the Bourgeois City: Citizenship, Public Space, and Middle–Class Activism in Mumbai. City & Community, 8(4), 391–406. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6040.2009.01299.x
Attwood, L. (2013). Gender and housing in Soviet Russia: Private life in a public space. Manchester University Press
Avritzer, L. (2009). Democracy and the public space in Latin America. Princeton University Press
Baber, Z. (2016). The plants of empire: Botanic gardens, colonial power and botanical knowledge. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 46(4), 659–679
Barron, J. (2017). Community gardening: Cultivating subjectivities, space, and justice. Local Environment, 22(9), 1142–1158
Barry, A. (2013). Material politics: Disputes along the pipeline. Wiley-Blackwell
Beaumont, C. (2016). Housewives and citizens: Domesticity and the women’s movement in England, 1928–64. Manchester University Press
Blau, E. (1999). The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919–1934. Cambridge, MA,: MIT Press
Bortoluci, J. H. (2016). Architectures of the People: Material and Cultural Politics of Housing in Sao Paulo, 1950–1995. [PhD Thesis]. University of Michigan
Bray, D. (2006). Building ‘community’: New strategies of governance in urban China. Economy and Society, 35(4), 530–549
Bray, D. (2008). Designing to govern: Space and power in two Wuhan communities. Built Environment, 34(4), 392–407
Brenner, N., & Theodore, N. (2002). Cities and the geographies of “actually existing neoliberalism”. Antipode, 34(3), 349–379
Broich, J. (2007). Engineering the empire: British water supply systems and colonial societies, 1850–1900. Journal of British Studies, 46(2), 346–365
Callahan, W. A. (2017). Cultivating power: Gardens in the global politics of diplomacy, war, and peace. International Political Sociology, 11(4), 360–379
Castells, M., Goh, L., & Kwok, R. Y. (1990). The Shek Kip Mei syndrome: Economic development and public housing in Hong Kong and Singapore: Vol. v. 4. Pion
Chan, H. C. (1991). Political Developments, 1965–1979. In E. Chew, & E. Lee (Eds.), A History of Singapore. Oxford University Press
Chaskin, R. J., & Abunimah, A. (1999). A view from the city: Local government perspectives on neighborhood-based governance in community-building initiatives. Journal of Urban Affairs, 21(1), 57–78
Chua, B. H. (1995). Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore. Routledge
Chua, B.H. (1997). Political Legitimacy and Housing: Stakeholding in Singapore. Routledge
Chua, B.H. (2000). Public Housing Residents as Clients of the State. Housing Studies, 15(1), 45–60
Chua, B.H. (2003). Life is Not Complete Without Shopping: Consumption Culture in Singapore. National University of Singapore Press
Coconuts Singapore. “Resident Takes Issue with Neighbor who Burnt Offerings Outside Flat; Questions Impartiality of Authorities.” Retrieved April 6, 2022 (https://coconuts.co/singapore/news/resident-takes-issue-neighbor-burnt-joss-paper-outside-flat-questions-impartiality-authorities/
Cohen, L. (2008). A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. Vintage Books
Coleman, A., & Brown, S. (1985). Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in Planned Housing. Hilary Shipman
Crampton, J. W., & Elden, S. (Eds.). (2007). Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Crossan, J., Cumbers, A., McMaster, R., & Shaw, D. (2016). Contesting Neoliberal Urbanism in Glasgow’s Community Gardens: The Practice of DIY Citizenship. Antipode, 48(4), 937–955. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12220
Dale, O. J. (1999). Urban Planning in Singapore: The Transformation of a City. Oxford University Press
de Carvalho, B. (2016). The making of the political subject: Subjects and territory in the formation of the state. Theory and Society, 45(1), 57–88. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-016-9264-0
Duncan, N. (1996). BodySpace:Destabilising Geographies of Gender and Sexuality. Routledge
Elden, S. (2007). There is a politics of space because space is political. Radical Philosophy Review, 10(2), 101–116
Elden, S. (2013). The Birth of Territory. University of Chicago Press
Fehérváry, K. (2013). Politics in Color and Concrete: Socialist Materialities and the Middle Class in Hungary. Indiana University Press
Ferguson, J., & Gupta, A. (2002). Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality. American Ethnologist, 29(4), 981–1002. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.2002.29.4.981
Fitting, P. (2002). Urban planning/utopian dreaming: Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh today. Utopian Studies, 13(1), 69–93
Fraser, J. C. (2004). Beyond gentrification: Mobilizing communities and claiming space. Urban Geography, 25(5), 437–457
French, R. A. (1995). Plans, Pragmatism and People: The Legacy of Soviet Planning for Today’s Cities. University of Pittsburgh Press
Gamer, R. E. (1972). The Politics of Urban Development in Singapore. Cornell University Press
Foucault, M. (2012). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books
Gandy, M. (2014). The Fabric of Space: Water, modernity, and the Urban Imagination. MIT Press
Ghose, R., & Pettygrove, M. (2014). Urban Community Gardens as Spaces of Citizenship. Antipode, 46(4), 1092–1112
Gieryn, T. F. (2000). A Space for Place in Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 463–496
Glendinning, M., & Muthesius, S. (1994). Tower Block: Modern Public Housing in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
Goh, R. B. (2001). Ideologies of ’Upgrading’in Singapore Public Housing: Post-modern Style, Globalisation and Class Construction in the Built Environment. Urban Studies, 38(9), 1589–1604
Goodman, N. (1985). How Buildings Mean. Critical Inquiry, 11(4), 642–653
Graham, S. (2016). Vanity and violence: On the politics of skyscrapers. City, 20(5), 755–771
Grant, B. (2014). The edifice complex: Architecture and the political life of surplus in the new Baku. Public Culture, 26(3 (74)), 501–528
Greenwood, K., & Jenkins, J. (2015). Visual framing of the Syrian conflict in news and public affairs magazines. Journalism Studies, 16(2), 207–227
Guldi, J. (2012). Roads to Power: Britain Invents the Infrastructure State. Harvard University Press
Harris, A. (2013). Concrete geographies: Assembling global Mumbai through transport infrastructure. City, 17(3), 343–360
Harvey, D. (2001). Spaces of capital: Towards a critical geography. Routledge
Harvey, D. (2006). The Political Economy of Public Space. In S. Low, & N. Smith (Eds.), The Politics of Public Space (pp. 17–34). Routledge
Harvey, P., & Knox, H. (2012). The Enchantments of Infrastructure. Mobilities, 7(4), 521–536. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2012.718935
Hatuka, T. (2018). The Design of Protest: Choreographing Political Demonstrations in Public Space. University of Texas Press
Hill, M., & Lian, K. F. (1995). The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore. Routledge
Hoffman, L. M. (2014). The Urban, Politics and Subject Formation. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(5), 1576–1588. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12145
Hollow, M. (2016). The age of affluence revisited: Council estates and consumer society in Britain, 1950–1970. Journal of Consumer Culture, 16(1), 279–296. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540514521083
Holston, J. (1989). The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia. University of Chicago Press
Holston, J. (1999). Spaces of Insurgent Citizenship. In J. Holston (Ed.), Cities and Citizenship (pp. 155–173). Duke University Press
Hou, J., & Knierbein, S. (Eds.). (2017). City Unsilenced: Urban Resistance and Public Space in the Age of Shrinking Democracy. Routledge
Howarth, D. (2006). Space, Subjectivity, and Politics. Alternatives, 31(2), 105–134. https://doi.org/10.1177/030437540603100201
Humphrey, C. (2005). Ideology in infrastructure: Architecture and Soviet imagination. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11(1), 39–58
Irazabal, C. (2017). Citizenship, Democracy and Public Space in Latin America. In T. Angotti (Ed.), Urban Latin America: Inequalities and Neoliberal Reforms (pp. 214–223). Rowman & Littlefield
Jacobs, J. M., & Cairns, S. (2008). The Modern Touch: Interior Design and Modernisation in Post-Independence Singapore. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 40(3), 572–595. https://doi.org/10.1068/a39123
Jeffrey, A., McFarlane, C., & Vasudevan, A. (2012). Rethinking Enclosure: Space, Subjectivity and the Commons. Antipode, 44(4), 1247–1267. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00954.x
Jones, D. M., & Brown, D. (1994). ‘Singapore and the Myth of the Liberalizing Middle Class’. The Pacific Review, 7(1), 79–87. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09512749408719073
Kaika, M. (2006). Dams as Symbols of Modernization: The Urbanization of Nature Between Geographical Imagination and Materiality. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 96(2), 276–301. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.2006.00478.x
King, A. D. (1996). Worlds in the city: Manhattan transfer and the ascendance of spectacular space. Planning Perspectives, 11(2), 97–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/02665439608559398
King, A. D. (2004). Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity. Routledge
Kirasirova, M. (2018). Building Anti-Colonial Utopia: The Politics of Space in Soviet Tashkent in the ‘Long 1960s’. In C. Jian, M. Klimke, M. Kirasirova, M. Nolan, M. Young, & J. Waley-Cohen (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties: Between Protest and Nation-Building (pp. 53–66). Routledge
Kirby, K. M. (1996). Indifferent Boundaries: Spatial Concepts of Human Subjectivity. Guilford Press
Klemun, M. (2008). Space, state, territory, region and habitat: Alpine gardens in the Habsburg countries. Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, 28(3–4), 414–423. https://doi.org/10.1080/14601176.2008.10404728
Koelemaij, J. (2018). Aspiring global nations? Tracing the actors behind Belgrade’s ‘nationally important’ waterfront. In S. Oosterlynck, L. Beeckmans, D. Bassens, B. Derudder, B. Segaert, & L. Braeckmans (Eds.), The City as a Global Political Actor (pp. 250–274). Routledge
Kong, L., & Yeoh, B. S. (2003). The Politics of Landscapes in Singapore: Constructions of ‘Nation’. Syracuse University Press
Kooy, M., & Bakker, K. (2008). Technologies of Government: Constituting Subjectivities, Spaces, and Infrastructures in Colonial and Contemporary Jakarta. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32(2), 375–391. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2008.00791.x
Larkin, B. (2013). ‘The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure’. Annual Review of Anthropology, 42(1), 327–343. doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092412-155522
Laszczkowski, M. (2015). Scraps, Neighbors, and Committees: Material Things, Place-Making, and the State in an Astana Apartment Block. City & Society, 27(2), 136–159. https://doi.org/10.1111/ciso.12057
Liu, T. K. (2016). Planning & Urbanisation in Singapore: A 50-Year Journey. In C. K. Heng (Ed.), 50 Years of Urban Planning in Singapore (pp. 23–44). World Scientific. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789814656474_0002
Loh, K. S. (2009a). History, Memory, and Identity in Modern Singapore: Testimonies from the Urban Margins. The Oral History Review, 36(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1093/ohr/ohp001
Loh, K. S. (2009b). Conflict and Change at the Margins: Emergency Kampong Clearance and the Making of Modern Singapore. Asian Studies Review, 33(2), 139–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357820902923258
Longhurst, R. (2002). Placing Subjectivities. In K. Anderson, M. Domosh, S. Pile, & N. Thrift (Eds.), Handbook of Cultural Geography (pp. 283–289). SAGE Publications Ltd.
Löw, M., & Steets, S. (2014). The spatial turn and the sociology of the built environment. In S. Koniordos, & A. Kyrtsis (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of European Sociology (pp. 211–224). Routledge
Marom, N. (2013). Activising Space: The Spatial Politics of the 2011 Protest Movement in Israel. Urban Studies, 50(13), 2826–2841. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013477699
Mauzy, D. K., & Milne, R. S. (2002). Singapore Politics Under the People’s Action Party. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203471807
Mitchell, T. (1991). The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics. The American Political Science Review, 85(1), 77–96. https://doi.org/10.2307/1962879
Mukerji, C. (1997). Territorial ambitions and the gardens of Versailles. Cambridge University Press
Mukerji, C. (2012). Space and political pedagogy at the gardens of Versailles. Public Culture, 24(3 68), 509–534
Ong, A. (2011). Hyperbuilding: Spectacle, speculation, and the hyperspace of sovereignty. In A. Roy, & A. Ong (Eds.), Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global. Wiley-Blackwell
Ooi, G. L. (1994). National identity, public housing and conservation in Singapore. Habitat International, 18(2), 71–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/0197-3975(94)90051-5
Pask, A. (2010). In J. Hou (Ed.), Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities. Routledge
Pavlaković, V., & Bădescu, G. (2019). In Z. Krajina, & R. Stevenson (Eds.), Urban Monuments and the Spatialization of National Ideologies. The Routledge Companion to Urban Media and Communication. Routledge
Pile, S. (2008). Where is the Subject? Geographical Imaginations and Spatializing Subjectivity. Subjectivity, 23(1), 206–218. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2008.9
Poon, A. (2013). ‘Common Ground, Multiple Claims: Representing and Constructing Singapore’s “Heartland”’. Asian Studies Review, 37(4), 559–576. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2013.844768
Probyn, E. (2003). The Spatial Imperative of Subjectivity. In K. Anderson, M. Domosh, S. Pile, & N. Thrift (Eds.), Handbook of Cultural Geography (pp. 290–299). SAGE Publications Ltd.
Pudup, M. B. (2008). It takes a garden: Cultivating citizen-subjects in organized garden projects. Geoforum, 39(3), 1228–1240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2007.06.012
Rappa, A. L. (2002). Modernity & Consumption: Theory, Politics and the Public in Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: World Scientific
Read, B. (2012). Roots of the State: Neighborhood Organization and Social Networks in Beijing and Taipei. Stanford University Press
Rodan, G. (1989). The political economy of Singapore’s industrialization: National state and international capital. Palgrave Macmillan
Rodriguez, L., & Dimitrova, D. V. (2011). The levels of visual framing. Journal of Visual Literacy, 30(1), 48–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/23796529.2011.11674684
Roy, A., & Ong, A. (Eds.). (2011). Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global. Wiley-Blackwell. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405192763.html
Rubin, E. (2011). Concrete Utopia: Everyday Life and Socialism in Berlin-Marzahn. Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Supplement 7: East German Material Culture and the Power of Memory, 27–44
Schill, D. (2012). The Visual Image and the Political Image: A Review of Visual Communication Research in the Field of Political Communication. Review of Communication, 12(2), 118–142. https://doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2011.653504
Schwalbe, C. B., Silcock, B. W., & Keith, S. (2008). Visual Framing of the Early Weeks of the U.S.-Led Invasion of Iraq: Applying the Master War Narrative to Electronic and Print Images. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 52(3), 448–465. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838150802205702
Schwenkel, C. (2013). Post/socialist affect: Ruination and reconstruction of the nation in urban Vietnam. Cultural Anthropology, 28(2), 252–277
Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed. Yale University Press
Seah, C. M. (1973). Community Centres in Singapore: Their Political Involvement. Singapore University Press
Seah, C. M. (1985). Parapolitical Institutions. In J. S. Quah, H. C. Chan, & C. M. Seah (Eds.), Government and Politics of Singapore (pp. 173–194). Oxford University Press
Shieh, L., & Friedmann, J. (2008). Restructuring urban governance: Community Construction in Contemporary China. City, 12(2), 183–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604810802176433
Simpson, P. (2017). Spacing the subject: Thinking subjectivity after non-representational theory. Geography Compass, 11(12), e12347. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12347
Soon, T. W., & Tan, C. S. (1997). Singapore: Public Policy and Economic Development. In D. M. Leipziger (Ed.), Lessons from East Asia (pp. 213–278). University of Michigan Press
Stage, S., & Vincenti, V. B. (1997). Rethinking Home Economics: Women and the History of a Profession. Cornell University Press
Stieber, N. (1998). Housing Design and Society in Amsterdam: Reconfiguring Urban Order and Identity, 1900–1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Tan, K. P. (2003). Democracy and the Grassroots Sector in Singapore. Space and Polity, 7(1), 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562570309245
Teo, P., Yeoh, B. S. A., Ooi, G. L., & Lai, K. P. Y. (2004). Changing Landscapes of Singapore. McGraw-Hill Education (Asia)
Teo, S. E., & Kong, L. (1997). Public housing in Singapore: Interpreting’quality’in the 1990s. Urban Studies, 34(3), 441–452
Thrift, N., & Pile, S. (Eds.). (1995). Mapping the Subject: Geographies of Cultural Transformation. Routledge
Tomba, L. (2014). The Government Next Door: Neighborhood Politics in Urban China. Illustrated edition. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press
Urban, F. (2012). Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing. Routledge
Vale, L. (2014). Architecture, power and national identity. Routledge
Warf, B., & Arias, S. (Eds.). (2009). The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Routledge
Watzlawik, J. C. (2016). On ‘Casseroles’ and Cobblestones: Approaches to the Material Culture of Public Protest. In P. Karin, & K. te Heesen (Eds.), On Display: Visual Politics, Material Culture, and Education (pp. 69–82). Waxmann
Winichakul, T. (1997). Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. University of Hawaii Press
Yeh, S. H., & Tan, S. L. (1975). Satisfaction with Living Conditions. In S. H. Yeh (Ed.), Public Housing in Singapore: A Multi-disciplinary Study (pp. 214–239). Singapore University Press
Yeoh, B. S. A. (2001). Postcolonial cities. Progress in Human Geography, 25(3), 456–468. https://doi.org/10.1191/030913201680191781
Yeoh, B. S. A. (2003). Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment. National University of Singapore Press
Yeung, Y. M., & Yeh, S. H. (1975). A Review of Neighbourhoods and Neighbouring Practices. In S. H. Yeh (Ed.), Public Housing in Singapore: A Multi-disciplinary Study (pp. 262–280). Singapore University Press
Yong, T. (1999). Public Homeownership, Housing Finance and Socioeconomic Development in Singapore. Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, 11(2), 100–113. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-940X.00009
Yuen, B. (1995). Public housing-led recreation development in Singapore. Habitat International, 19(3), 239–252. https://doi.org/10.1016/0197-3975(94)E. 0012-P
Funding
Not applicable.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflicts of Interest/competing interests:
None.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Appendix A: Primary Sources
Appendix A: Primary Sources
Publication | Years Available | Issues analysed | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
Housing and Development Board | 101 | ||
Our Home | 1972–1989 | 101 | |
Town Councils (PAP) | 549 | ||
Aljunied | 1989-96; 1998–2002; 2005 | 43 | |
Ang Mo Kio | 1998–2005; 2018-20 | 36 | |
Ang Mo Kio South | 1990-2 | 6 | |
Ang Mo Kio West | 1987–1991 | 12 | |
Ang Mo Kio-Yio Chu Kang | 2006-08 | 12 | |
Ang Mo Kio-Yishun | 1996–2002 | 18 | |
Bedok | 1989-97 | 55 | |
East Coast | 1997–2006; 2015-19 | 69 | |
Toa Payoh | 1990-94 | 23 | |
Bishan-Toa Payoh | 1997–2002; 2004-18 | 105 | |
Bishan-Serangoon | 1991-96 | 22 | |
Bukit Batok | 1989-97 | 26 | |
Cheng San | 1991-93 | 9 | |
Holland-Bukit Panjang | 2019-20 | 6 | |
Hougang | 1989-91 | 9 | |
Marine Parade | 1990; 1993-95; 2012 | 7 | |
Pasir Ris | 2000; 2002-03 | 3 | |
Sembawang | 1991-4; 1996–2002; 2018 | 23 | |
Tampines | 1992; 1995-6; 1999–2007; 2016-7; 2019 | 23 | |
West Coast | 2003-6; 2008-20 | 42 | |
Town Councils (Opposition) | 43 | ||
Hougang (Workers’ Party) | 1993; 1994-6; 2001-5 | 9 | |
Aljunied Hougang (Workers’ Party) | 2012; 2016-21 | 15 | |
Aljunied Hougang Punggol East (Workers’ Party) | 2013-15 | 6 | |
Potong Pasir (Singapore Democratic Party; Singapore Progressive Party) | 1992-3; 1995; 1998; 2001; 2004; 2006-8 | 13 | |
693 | |||
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chuang, T.J. From modern urban resident to sociable urban citizen: The making of spatial-political subjectivity through public housing in Singapore, 1972—2021. Theor Soc 51, 835–870 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-022-09485-1
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-022-09485-1