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Book Reviews, Southeast Asia

Volume 96 – No. 1

THE HARD STATE, SOFT CITY OF SINGAPORE | Edited by Simone Shu-Yeng Chung, Mike Douglass

 Asian Cities. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. 302 pp. US$113.00, cloth; US$104.00, ebook. ISBN 9789463729505.


The title of this edited volume points to the paradox its authors explore: the Singapore government wishes to encourage the development of the creative economy (the “soft city”) even while the government (the “hard state”) strictly regulates artistic and political expression. The ruling regime, forever wary of conflict and criticism, censors all artistic and literary production, requires that organizers of public gatherings obtain licenses, and retaliates against transgressors, resulting in extreme limits on spontaneity and critique. Furthermore, civil society exists within a context where decades of state-sponsored redevelopment schemes have erased almost all remnants of the past and what remain have been commodified to serve as tourist attractions. Yet, Singaporeans have exploited the interstices within the physical and social environment to engage in activities that evade state surveillance.

The work is not a coherent whole but rather consists of a series of riffs on the hard/soft theme. The term “soft city” refers to the book of that title by Jonathan Rabin (Soft City, E. P. Dutton, 1974), which depicts the city within the urban occupant’s imagination. Many of the contributors use the language of cultural studies, alluding to “imaginings” and to the writings of Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, and Pierre Bourdieu. Lefebvre’s concept of the city of “one’s heart’s desire,” which is distinguished from the abstract space prescribed by the state, receives particular attention. Several of the authors identify physical spaces where creative activities occur: the basement of a shopping mall in which unauthorized jam sessions take place; a cemetery threatened by highway construction that has stimulated digital renderings of associated histories accessible on an app; hawkers’ centres (“third spaces”) where disparate groups mix. One chapter discusses the interactions evolving from campaigns for the political opposition; even though such efforts never succeed in producing parliamentary majorities, they do create an alternative space in which participants develop critical viewpoints. Oddly the role of universities and the spaces they harbour get no acknowledgement, and there is only passing reference to nongovernmental organizations.

The editors’ introduction and conclusion note the Singapore’s government’s relatively recent understanding that realizing its aim of global city status meant it had to encourage a creative sector. After Richard Florida’s gospel of the creative class (The Rise of the Creative Class, Basic Books, 2002) reached Singapore, the government ceased enforcing its law against gay sexual relations (and just this year eliminated the law even while still outlawing gay marriage). It adopted planning rubrics that had become stylish elsewhere: live-work-play communities, flexible spaces for start-up industries, public participation. At the same time, bohemian lifestyles remain problematic for the Singaporean state since they have the potential to threaten state hegemony.

The book’s editors provide an introduction that presents its major themes and a conclusion

summarizing its lessons. Chapters explore the intellectual history of the city-state, the effect of destruction of the initial built environment, the criminalization of criticism of the state, and the alienation resulting from the constant overhaul of living space. They discuss the loss resulting from the downplaying of art and architecture in favour of economic development. Other chapters recount the ways in which residents appropriate and personalize impersonal space, showing the function of poetry readings in creating connections among auditors, how furtive rock-and-roll jamming produces community, how residents transform impersonal corridors through creating small gardens, and the use of pop-up spaces within vacant shops to allow for unstructured events.

Although the editors attempt to address a general audience interested in the Singapore model, the book mostly depends on a readership with pre-existing knowledge of the history and geography of the island nation. The reader is assumed to be familiar with its neighbourhoods and institutional structures like the Central Provident Fund (CPF), the Housing and Development Board (HDB), the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP), and the People’s Action Party (PAP).

The virtue of Hard State, Soft City lies in provoking challenging questions to the reader. Do humans live by bread alone? Singapore has been unquestionably successful in producing enormous material benefits for its citizens (although not, as one of the chapters points out, to its large number of foreign contract workers). Along with attaining economic growth that moved it from among the poorest countries to a place among the richest, it has reached a level of educational achievement at the very top. It has prompted many imitators, and a host of Singapore-based consultants have spread its model around the world (Chua Beng Huat, “Singapore as model: Planning innovations, knowledge experts,” in Worlding Cities, eds. Ananya Roy and Aihwa Ong, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, 29–54). The authors contend that much of the Singapore citizenry and permanent resident population passively accept domination by the single-party state, and they attribute this passivity to the state’s erasure of history and of the island’s previous physical character. Although Singapore is a formal electoral democracy and now offers organized channels of public participation, the authors view these linkages as too circumscribed to be meaningful. Still, peace among ethnic groups that elsewhere are in conflict, adequate, affordable housing for virtually every citizen, excellent health and educational services, and extensive, beautiful if tame open space promote widespread satisfaction. Whether these benefits are sufficient to constitute the city of one’s heart’s desire is the overarching issue raised by this book.


Susan S. Fainstein

Harvard University, Cambridge


Last Revised: February 28, 2023
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