Vagueness as roadmap? The Singapore Liveability Framework as Sustainable urban Development Blueprint

Subadevan Boyd-Devan, Brown University

Singapore’s global appeal lies in its perceived ability to balance the imperative of economic growth with environmental sustainability and the widespread distribution of urban goods, particularly housing and public space. What is puzzling, however, is how the knowledge framework summarizing Singapore’s urban developmental experience for export, called the Singapore Liveability Framework, carries little to no meaning in and of itself. Using insights from cultural and political sociology, I demonstrate the implicit political ideology underpinning an urban model that has international fans across the political spectrum, mapping it onto hegemonic knowledge products that circulate in the global symbolic urban economy. I interrogate how selected case studies demonstrating the ‘Singapore model’ comprise particular selective articulations of historical evidence in crafting blueprints for the future. I provide the provisional argument that while the framework is vague in details, allowing it to remain relevant in a landscape of rapid urban policy experimentation under neoliberalism, it is clear in subjugating the importance of democratic participation to notions of the need for exigency in enabling rapid urban transformation necessary to avoid urban catastrophe.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 67. Knowledge Production, Social Movements and Power in Cities from Asia to Argentina