PUBLIC SPACES: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF PLACE MANAGEMENT AND PARTNERSHIPS

Abstract

In recognizing that the provision of physical infrastructures alone is inadequate, Singapore has adopted the strategy of place management to focus on the softer aspects of urban development. Public spaces— being predominant constituents of a place that have potential economic and social values— are key areas in which place management are focused. Encompassing the process of place-making and place branding, place management is an area-based approach to achieve the economic, social and environmental potential of a place. The place-making initiatives generally comprise of urban design elements and programs. They aim to make public spaces vibrant and appealing in each precinct, to be coupled with unique place brandings for three desired objectives (stakeholder — interest): 1. People — To improve and enrich user experience. 2. Private (business)— To increase footfall and visitor consumption of service or product. 3. Public (state) — To showcase Singapore internationally as a holistic ‘Global City’ state that offers an array of unique and attractive precincts (more through place branding). Recognising that effort of the state alone is inadequate, the responsibility of place management is decentralised to business sectors through partnerships with various government. These implementations are instituted in the respective public spaces of private developments as various urban design elements and programs. Extant literatures on place management have therefore generally termed this joint venture as ‘public-private partnership’. However, its ubiquitous usage in scholarships with limited explications of its vested dimensions seems to refer them as identical undertakings. Considering that the interest of people is intrinsic in the interest of the state due to its ‘holistic’ outlook, this dissertation seeks to examine the contestation of interest between the public (state) and private (business sector) that is inherent within this broadly-coined term of public-private partnership. iii Specifically, the paper argues that there are different types of public-private partnerships that are more defined by interest privacy gradients due to various articulations of power and interests at stake. Three types are identified— Profit-oriented, Brand Heritage-oriented and Public-oriented partnerships. An assessment of organisational scale between three precinct place-manager— Orchard Road Business Association (ORBA), Singapore River One (SRO), and Marina Bay Development Agency (MBDA)— seeks to illustrate the difference in nature between the types of partnership and how varying state and business interests are contested within each category. Following that, an assessment on a smaller building scale drawing on three different private developments within Marina Bay (MBDA) illuminates how these three respective types of partnerships are spatially expressed in their corresponding public spaces through their place-making initiatives. By comparing and analysing the undertakings of both scales, it provides insight into the different ways respective stakeholders are empowered through partnerships to achieve their agendas. This paper seeks to demonstrate that public-private division within the partnership is not so straightforward, and attempts to unpack the complex politics that is inherent in the place management of public space in downtown Singapore.