SOCIAL EFFECTS OF PROVIDING CASUAL WORK SERVICES IN SINGAPORE �S HDB NEW TOWNS

Abstract

Despite the success stories being discussed worldwide about Singapore’s public housing landscape, there are still research showing the social issues faced by the HDB new towns in Singapore - lack of neighborliness. There are ample existent campaigns and initiatives to address this issue but have shown limited success as pointed out in this study. There is no research being done to understand the relevance of casual work and how this trending concept can provide an alternative strategy to address the issue of neighborliness in modern HDB new towns today.

This study seeks to understand the severity of the issue on neighborliness and what are the actual responses and attitudes of residents when it comes to the topic of sense of neighborliness. This research also seeks to explore the preference and social behavior of the residents and how innovative and sustainable measures can be put in placed to effectively address or at least alleviate the issue on neighborliness. Casual work services/opportunities were also dealt with to see what are the general receptiveness of residents and their attitudes towards it. Data collection and analysis is done on 3 HDB new towns namely Jurong East, Bishan and Bedok. These data were collected via site visits and the use of survey questionnaires. By doing so, this study could reveal to us the relationship between residents’ social interaction and sense of neighborliness based on the potential introduction of casual work services. I hope my work would initiate a new area of study and open doors to fresh ideas to improve the neighborliness of Singapore’s new towns.