PREFERENCE FOR CITY CENTRE HOUSING & ITS IMPACT ON GENTRIFICATION POTENTIAL IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

The Concept Plan 2001 marks a new milestone for city living in Singapore, with the government taking conscious effort to promote the downtown as a place for residence. Concrete actions like releasing increased number of sites slated for residential development in the city centre and actively promoting the concept of downtown living have endeared this idea to Singaporeans, shown by the positive response that the Duxton Plains Project received. This study attempts to find out how the people in the age group of 20 to 40 years of age feel about this issue through means of a survey. The study also isolated certain residential areas within the city centre and evaluates their popularity amongst the respondents. The results showed that half of the respondents approached exhibit proclivity towards city living and most cited Singapore River and The New DownTown as preferred sites within the city. On the other end, Chinatown rated lowest amongst the respondents, with only 1 out of 10 people surveyed responding positively to living in the area. This suggest that city living is rather attractive to Singaporeans, given that even the least popular area Chinatown was received with mild enthusiasm by the respondents. The issue of gentrification is also breached by the author in this study, especially pertaining to its potential of occurrence in Singapore. After careful review of overseas literature, a framework most suited for application to Singapore is adopted by the author. The resulting analysis is that gentrification is not occurring in Singapore at this moment. This can be attributed to the development of new sites e.g. The New Downtown, in close proximity of the existing city centre, easing pressure off the current downtown. However, based on the findings obtained in the course of this research, the author surmised that gentrification remains a distinct possibility in Singapore's future.