SOCIAL INTERACTION ON PEDESTRIAN STREETS IN CHINATOWN

Abstract

With the turn of the 21st century, the focus has shifted to providing sustainable development and quality of life for Singaporeans. Not only is street quality assessed by its ability to be efficient transportation channels but also by its ability to support social interaction and to function as interaction points. Singapore is moving towards becoming a pedestrian-friendly city, with streets that provide comfort and pleasure to the pedestrians as well as facilitate street activities to encourage social interaction so as to create a bustling, lively and dynamic city. With this issue in mind, this dissertation attempts to explore the social interaction on pedestrian streets in Singapore using 3 streets - Smith Street, Pagoda Street and Trengganu Street of Kreta Ayer, Chinatown as examples. Two aspects of social interaction on pedestrian streets were examined. Firstly, how the quality of pedestrian streets can encourage social interaction and secondly, what can be done to pedestrian streets to encourage social interaction among pedestrians. Gehl's (1987) research method was adopted to observe and analyze the extent and pattern of social interaction. A survey was also conducted with pedestrians. It was found that pedestrian streets that are spacious, having a pedestrian density of not more than 10 pedestrians per minute per street width and providing sufficient shelter and sitting spaces will encourage the most social interaction.