LIVE-WORK PROXIMITY FOR BETTER CITY LIVING

Abstract

Under the 2016 Concept Plan by URA, the “live, work, play” concept in Singapore is a fundamental shift in urban planning that prioritizes integrated developments and spatial proximity of living, working and playing places to boost city living of its inhabitants. As Singapore becomes more developed, city living and Quality of Life (QOL) has been increasingly emphasized.

While Singapore has been ranked the 1st amongst all Asian countries and 25th internationally for the best quality of living (Mercer , 2017), Singaporean workers are the unhappiest workers in Southeast Asia (Chua, 2016). One crucial contributor is the long commute time from homes to workplaces. While 30 minutes is deemed as the ideal time to work, commute time is said to increase by 5 to 10 minutes in recent years. Hence, many Singaporeans are taking 40 to 60 minutes to travel to the city centre, signaling spatial strategies mooted being less effective in actuality.

This study thus investigated the spatial strategies undertaken by Singapore in relation to spatial proximity of live-work, its impacts and preferences of Singaporeans for future live-work places. The study has established spatial proximity being a crucial factor of QOL. Commute time had a myriad of impacts on society, environment, businesses and individuals; which are largely positive. Through spatial analysis of strategies across Singapore, public surveys and interviews with industry experts, a consistent notion for optimal 30 minutes of commute time and maximum commute time being 60 minutes was established. The current measures such as Decentralisation, Zoning, Mixed-Use developments and Cluster strategies have achieved high efficacy in augmenting city living in Singapore.

Moving forward, preferences of Singaporeans such as living near work place should work in tandem with best practices from overseas, so as to drive better city living and improved QOL.