DECENTRALISATION AND ITS IMPACT ON SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICE PROPERTIES IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

This study aims to explore the impact of urban planning strategies, particularly the decentralisation strategies used in Singapore on the island-wide office properties distribution before and after 1990. It gives us an idea how urban planning affects the urban pattern. Four hypotheses were constructed in order to meet its objectives. Research was designed to solve these hypotheses. In the analysis, GIS map is used to see the office pattern spatially and median office prices of different regional centres are compared to the CBD. The result shows a significant difference in median office prices in 1995 compared to year 2002. In addition, research was also carried out to see if there is relationship between the distance from CBD and the property prices. The result is a low R square value of an average 0.01 which shows that the distance from CBD is not crucial in determining the office prices in Singapore. The result also shows that there is a difference in median office prices among the regional centres from the analysis. From the GIS map, it is shown that after the Revised Concept Plan 1991, more offices were constructed near regional centres by way of specialised parks. After their construction, there is no significant change in spatial distribution of office properties island-wide from 1995 to 2002, thus the fourth hypothesis is also rejected.