《Spatial order through the family: the regulation of urban space in Singapore》

打印
作者
来源
URBAN GEOGRAPHY,Vol.38,Issue7,P.1084-1108
语言
英文
关键字
Urban; space; regulation; Singapore; family qualitative case study; PUBLIC SPACE; POSTINDUSTRIAL CITY; STATE; COMMUNITY; DISORDER; CITIES; RENAISSANCE; GOVERNANCE; MANAGEMENT; GOVERNMENT
作者单位
[Mele, Christopher] SUNY Buffalo, Geog, Sociol, Buffalo, NY 14260 USA. Mele, C (reprint author), SUNY Buffalo, Geog, Sociol, Buffalo, NY 14260 USA. E-Mail: cmele@buffalo.edu
摘要
This article examines the regulation of urban public space through a study of the role of the family unit in past and present urban development in Singapore. Since the founding of modern Singapore 50years ago, the nuclear family has remained the preferred social institution for state policies and subsequent regulation of education, housing, employment, health, leisure, social welfare and even neighborhood development. Drawing on primary government documents and field work and interviews with current and displaced small business owners on a commercial street in Chinatown, the article demonstrates how a softer version of spatial regulation emerged from an intersection of state commercial development policies that favored small, family-owned businesses and the extension of a family-based moral social order applied to the surrounding public spaces. The result is the regulation of Chinatown's streets and sidewalks became inextricably bound up with the everyday operations of family-run businesses. More recently, state interest in creating an entertainment-based global Singapore has jeopardized this arrangement, as corporate gentrification threatens to displace family ownership of small businesses.