Public intervention,private aspiration: Gated communities and the condominisation of housing landscapes in Singapore |
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| Authors: | Choon‐Piew Pow |
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| Institution: | Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 1 Arts Link, Singapore 117570.Email: geopowcp@nus.edu.sg |
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| Abstract: | While the proliferation of gated communities worldwide has generated great interests and debates, the emergence of gated communities is by no means a ‘global’ urban phenomenon that displays uniform characteristics and genesis. Drawing on Singapore as a case study, this paper goes beyond the universalising and often polemical discourses on gated communities to provide a balanced account on how gated communities in the form of enclosed condominium estates are locally embedded in the city state where public housing dominates. As will be pointed out in the paper, gated communities in Singapore may be considered as a form of ‘club good’ that exists as part of the state's urban/national developmental agenda and are, arguably, less socially and spatially divisive than those depicted elsewhere. By teasing out the local specificities of gated communities, this paper underscores the need to read beyond the physical form of gated communities in order to understand the complex social and political production of housing landscapes. |
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| Keywords: | club good condominiums gated communities middle class Singapore state |
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