More talk on Singapore as a Global City

Blog Response 3: "SM Goh urges architects to turn S'pore into global city" (check out the video too)
Category: Politics

A sort of follow up on blog response 2.

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In the article, we can see that SM Goh is mainly focused on how infrastructure will help Singapore develop into a global city. He emphasises a cosmopolitan city with a strong Asian core. This is all very easy to say, but how are we to do this?

To be a global city, we have to have high economic output and also have diversity of culture. Singapore has already achieved a considerably high amount of economic output, meaning we are half the way there. Infrastructure will attract investors, but how will infrastructure improve Singapore in the cultural and social aspect?

Having visually pleasing buildings is not the main point. They have to be functional and contribute to the big picture. Thus, buildings will have to be innovative to maximise space, visually pleasing, but functional too.

The first step is to plan. Singapore is too small. If we make a mistake it would be hard to reverse.

Currently, Singapore is seen as a “Global Niche City” (source, scroll down to the bottom). Our niche is the economic aspect, this means that our cultural, social and political aspects are lacking. I believe SM Goh is aiming to be a “Well rounded global city” and with a “very large contribution”.

To improve upon our cultural aspect means to accept other cultures and cater to them. As we can see from GaWC’s list, there are global cities with cultural bias. Singapore obviously does not want to be seen in that light. Thus, we need infrastructure to allow people from other cultures to come to Singapore. A foreign language school, such as Japanese School in Singapore, would be one example of something that caters to another culture. We may need infrastructure that helps integrate these people into Singapore.

How about the social aspect? I am not entirely sure on what this may mean, but I believe it means policies in the government that help the public in a certain way. This would mean that to be a well-rounded global city, we would have to change some of the policies that we may have now. However, I think Singapore is on the way to this goal with existing policies such as edusave, medisave, etc. These can be seen as helping the public, so I think they would be under the social aspect.

Singapore’s political system is okay in my opinion, but I believe it could be improved on. The areas most people think may need work on are probably human rights and civil liberties. Currently, people in Singapore have less freedom in some areas, such as freedom of speech. We are disallowed from voicing our opinions, particularly on political subjects.

Using good planning, new and innovative infrastructure and improving upon our lacking points, Singapore can become a well-rounded global city. However, infrastructure is not the only method to being a global city. Many other aspects of Singapore must be looked at, not just the physical aspects. By doing so, we can revise Singapore and keep ourselves "relevant and ahead of the competition".

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