LEARNING FROM SINGAPORE'S STREETS TO ENVISION THE FUTURE

Abstract

This paper seeks to discover if a Singaporean model of great streets would corroborate the European / American model, with regards to the factors that account for the success of great streets.

It is aimed at elucidating the factors which contribute to great streets so that urban planners / architects would be able to take these factors into consideration in their future work.

At the start, it is presumed that the Singaporean model would differ from the European / American model due to the differences in culture and climate. However, at the end of the paper, it would seem that this is not the case.

Although the European / American model may also be applied to Singapore, this paper shows that a different model of factors would apply to streets of different usages. In addition, this paper shows that time, and the evolution of streets over time, may be the most important factor that is the least understood – the underlying factor that affects all the other factors that are found in the streets discussed.

Hence, even though the European / American model is supported by empirical evidence in this paper, and this paper also discovers which of the factors might be more important, this paper critically identifies the need for more research to be done to understand how time affects the evolution of great streets, so as to make the model more complete.