Build It and They Will Come: Singapore as a Destination

Kirsten Fry
Urban Design

Singapore is often referred to as the ‘stopover on the way to somewhere else’. But, as I learnt from my recent trip to the country, it is clear that they are trying to convert this common perception - and they are succeeding, particularly through innovative planning and urban design initiatives.

Every year, more and more people are travelling to Singapore as a destination with the number of major attractions to support such an increase in tourist activity emerging just as rapidly. In the month of July 2010 alone, Singapore had 1,095,000 visitors. To put this in context, Australia had 74,569 visitors in the same month. The year 2008 saw 10.1 million visitors, with a steady increase since the 1970s; in 1975 there were 1.3 million visitors to Singapore (Singapore Tourism Board, 2010).

Singapore’s economic growth has accelerated to a record 18.1 percent pace in the first half of 2010, spurring the currency and putting the island on course to overtake China as Asia’s fastest-growing economy this year.

Even with all the focus put on the tourism industry in Singapore, local infrastructure has not been forgotten. In 2005, The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Singapore as having the best quality of life in Asia and eleventh overall in the world in its ‘Quality-Of-Life Index’. The index is measured from factors such as health, community life, political stability, climate, job security, and gender equality. This is particularly interesting as Brisbane increases in population and slowly changes its perception of how liveable medium-higher density living is. With the ‘quality of life’ in Singapore being so highly regarded, it is notable that there are just over 7,000 people per square kilometre in the island nation (Statistics Singapore, 2010) when in June 2009, Brisbane had a population of 340 people per square kilometer (ABS, 2010).

Singapore has on-going land reclamation projects with earth obtained from its own hills, the seabed, and neighbouring countries. As a result, Singapore's land area grew from 581.5 km2 in the 1960s to 704 km2 today, and may grow by another 100 km2 by 2030.
Prudent land use planning has enabled Singapore to enjoy strong economic growth and social cohesion, and ensures that sufficient land is safeguarded to support continued economic progress and future development.

As land is scarce in what is one of the most densely populated countries, the goal of urban planners is to maximise the use of land efficiently yet comfortably and to serve as many people as possible for a particular purpose, such as housing or commercial functions in high rise and high density buildings. Infrastructure, environmental conservation, land for water catchments and military use are all considerations for Singapore’s urban planners.

The urban planning policy demands that most buildings being constructed should be high-rise, with exceptions for conservation efforts for heritage or nature. Housing blocks turned into complexes, which occupied a large area with thousands of apartments in each one as opposed to smaller high-rise blocks with hundreds. This allows for efficient land use without compromising the standard of living.

In terms of the urban planning in Singapore, their policies also rely on the effective use of public transport and other aspects of Singapore's transport system. Singapore's Mass Rapid Transit system allows the different districts to be linked by rail to all the other districts without having to rely on roads extensively. And as there are only 109 private cars per 1,000 people, public transport is a key driver in the efficiency of Singapore (Statistics Singapore, 2010). This also reduces strain on traffic and pollution while saving space.

Public amenities also have to be strategically placed in order to benefit the largest number of people possible with minimum redundancy and wastage. A major feature of urban planning in Singapore is to avoid such situations.

Evidently, the saying ‘If you build it, they will come’ can be seen to have intense relevance to the nation of Singapore, with the increase in development of major attractions reflecting the increasing number of tourists. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Singapore.