Ooi Giok Ling, Straits Times 2 Aug 08;
THE more things change, the more they become the same.
Globalisation has led to essentially the same 'glamour zones' springing up in major cities and in those aspiring to join their league. These are places for a city's wealthy and elite, who divide their time between restaurants, golf courses and brand-name stores, when they are not shuttling between the airport and their upmarket homes.
Despite their lack of individuality, these urban spaces flourish, perhaps because they reassure and comfort the professionals who cross borders to take up high-level jobs requiring their particular skills. After all, a move to the other side of the world would not be so bad if Prada, DKNY and Starbucks are there to meet you.
These universal, 'placeless' enclaves have taken root in cities competing to join the likes of New York, London, Frankfurt and Paris - global cities that commandeer a chunk of the global economy.
Yet we see much evidence too of resistance to cultural globalisation. Many have become conscious that the competitiveness of their cities depends not on becoming like every other city in the world but on recognising what makes the cities unique. They have come to realise that their cities can stay on the mental maps of international investors and businesses if they developed and conserved places important to their denizens.
So unlike the cities that have gone for super-expressways and iconic, ultra-modern buildings and airports, such cities seek recognition of their history and architectural heritage and a place in Unesco's list of World Heritage Sites.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) is doing an admirable job putting Singapore on the global map through integrated transport systems. Yet after all the efforts to connect people to their destinations, will Singaporeans still have places that they want to go to? Though the LTA has made several bids at conservation, its tunnels and road-widening efforts have, nonetheless, erased spots meaningful to Singaporeans.
The latest to bite the demolition dust is the New Seventh Storey Hotel in Bugis. Both the LTA and Urban Redevelopment Authority have given sound explanations of why the hotel had to go but it was something that contributed to Singapore's urban identity. Unlikely to be found anywhere else, places like the hotel weave themselves into the story of a neighbourhood and help it stick in the collective memory of the city's residents.
Spots like these make us ask questions: How did the New Seventh Storey Hotel get its name? And why was it built in that particular neighbourhood rather than somewhere else? In seeking and finding the answers to such questions, we invest ourselves in the city where it is found.
Unique buildings also lend an identity to a particular road when we try to remember where it is and what it looks like. Much of the charm of the Champs-Elysees, for instance, lies in the places strung along its length - from the Arc de Triomphe to the Tuileries Gardens - as well as the history behind them.
And places that linger in our minds do more than help us visualise a road: They also enable us to see our past.
Many Singaporeans who have gone abroad for an extended period to work or study have lamented the disappearance of favourite haunts such as hawker centres or coffee shops when they return. Still others have expressed frustration that they can't show their children where Mum and Dad used to live or go to school; they can only indicate the general area. They may not even be able to point out the streets along which they walked to school if these have been cleared to make way for highways and so on.
We should never forget what centralised planning has done for Singaporeans. Public housing, neighbourhood conveniences, schools, polyclinics, public transport, parks, open spaces, city centres and such - it would be churlish to quibble about decisions to demolish the old to make way for such newer and better amenities.
Yet urban planning in the new millennium clearly must involve more than meeting our basic needs. It must take into account places that remind us of who we are.
Urban planning can be meaningful only if it encompasses diversity and absorbs the views of the citizens using these places.
By keeping this in mind, those responsible for shaping our landscape, such as the Singapore Land Authority, will be able to build a city that truly accommodates people and their need for places both new and historic.
Because, sometimes, the more things change, the more we need them to stay the same.
The writer is a professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University.
