IMPLICATIONS OF THE RAPIDLY EMERGING CAFE INDUSTRY: TIONG BAHRU AND BEYOND

Abstract

The recent phenomenon of the emerging café industry in the neighbourhoods has left many impacts on the estate and it visitors. In 2011, one of the first cafés made its entrance into Tiong Bahru. Since then, more of them rapidly sprouted up in clusters across Singapore. The surge in this specific commercial industry in especially the residential areas has left many people affected in various ways. This exploratory research focused on Tiong Bahru, reviewing the many impacts reported previously on the estate. The most significant ones were chosen for further analysis, to weigh the costs and benefits of this emergence and to determine which of those are of the most pressing concern. A survey of 300 visitors to Tiong Bahru was carried out, to find out their perceptions of the various impacts on the estate. The results revealed that in general, there were people who supported and those who did not support the industry booming in the estate. Respondents were most concerned over the increase in the number of cars and the additional food and garbage smell. On the other side, they were most appreciative of the growing liveliness of the estate and the increase in the variety of cafés. Overall, the findings showed that respondents rated the factors in the ‘Inconvenience’ category the most important, very closely followed by those in the ‘Estate Rejuvenation’ category. Contrary to what preliminary research revealed, those in the ‘Traffic-Related’ category were rated very lowly in importance. An important implication from this dissertation is the addition of useful findings and insights to the research for estate rejuvenation and estate planning. Subsequently after the results from analysis, recommendations were offered at the end of the dissertation for Government agencies and for café owners, so as to aid in decisions to be made regarding this industry and its impacts.