C HAPTER 1

The Early Years of Nation-Building:

Reflections on Singapore’s Urban History
Alan F. C. Choe

Introduction
Singapore has one of the most striking and ever-evolving skylines in the world,
created through a process of rapid urban development (Figure 1). In the short span
of 50 years, the city-state has transformed from a third world to a modern global
city. Today, Singapore ranks as one of the top 10 most livable cities in the world.
Singapore’s success in urban development and infrastructure efficiency has also
elevated the nation’s position as a desirable country for economic development, cou-
pled with sound economic policies and a stable political environment, thus spurring
greater urbanisation and development.
This transformation from a “fishing village” to a modern world-class metropoli-
tan city was beyond the imaginations of many, given, some 50 years ago, slums and
squatter settlements were rampant. Lack of modern sanitation in tandem with poor
public health and safety standards were then the norm. Today, we often take for
granted the privileges of health, safety, and modern conveniences that include an
accessible and operational mass rapid transit (MRT) system at our fingertips. It is
therefore useful to reflect where we came from and the progress Singapore has made in
a post-independence era. Today’s Singapore, particularly our model of urbanisation, is
the envy of many countries.
This chapter is an attempt at reflecting the history of Singapore’s early years,
when extremely poor living conditions were part and parcel of the everyday urban
experience. Improving such dire living conditions involved intense struggles and
passionate efforts towards modernisation and urbanisation. The strategies, methods,
and improvisations for urban development needed to compensate for the lack of
readily available resources and information on the subject as televisions, publica-
tions, and the Internet were non-existent then. By shedding light on our trials and
tribulations, it is hoped that the experiences of my generation will offer some useful
and thought-provoking considerations for future successive generations.

3
4 A. F. C. Choe

Figure 1. Singapore’s modern urban skyline featuring Marina Bay and the Central Business
District.
Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority.

In this chapter, I would like to explore how urban planning was introduced to
Singapore during the colonial era and why urban renewal was incorporated into the
nation-building process following Singapore’s independence. This moment of urban
change was led by the clear vision and determination of fearless political leaders and
government officials. Through cooperation, innovation and courage, a city was devel-
oped and a nation built in two generations. In order to value the fruits of this labour
we must start at the beginning.

The Colonial Legacy: An Urban Story of Inheritance and Loss

The story of Singapore’s urban history traditionally begins with the arrival of Sir
Stamford Raffles in 1819 and the strategic establishment of the island into a colonial
entrepôt serving the Straits Settlements trade route. During this 140-year colonial
reign, the British rulers sought to imprint their Eurocentric urban planning principles
on the physical terrain of Singapore. Under the colonial administration, Singapore
inherited a development strategy that favoured a system of planning to promote
economic development and bolster development growth. Thus, Singapore’s earliest
detailed town plan (1822) (Figure 2), prepared through a Town Planning Committee
formed by Sir Stamford Raffles and led by Lieutenant Philip Jackson, served as the
blueprint for the spatial organisation of the future town of Singapore.
The “Plan of the Town of Singapore”, as the planning document was called, set
forth three proposals for the layout of the new settlement sited at the gateway of the
Singapore River. Firstly, a gridiron street pattern was imposed on the land as a means of
inculcating a rational sense of uniformity and orderliness. Land was then subsequently
divided into narrow lots which private individuals could purchase on a freehold basis or
on a leasehold term of up to 999 years, as was the liberal policy then towards land
ownership and tenure. Construction at the time consisted mainly of low-rise shop-
house-style buildings of one- to two-storeys with commerce permitted on the ground
 CHAPTER 1 | The Early Years of Nation-Building: Reflections on Singapore’s Urban History 5

Figure 2. Plan of the Town of Singapore, 1822.

Source: Survey Department Collection, Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

floor to support the expanding mercantile activities along the Singapore River.
Secondly, land was assigned functional specialisation with areas carved out for admin-
istrative, educational, recreational, and religious activities. This initial zoning of land
led to the provision of infrastructure and amenities such as civic institutions, schools,
and parks for use by the growing numbers of Europeans settling in Singapore. These
places, however, ostracised the local inhabitants. Thirdly, and in relation to the local
populace, the town plan concentrated and segregated the various racial and ethnic
groups into designated residential enclaves. Some enclaves, such as Chinatown, were
further divided according to clan dialects with the Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese
communities occupying various parts of the Chinese district.
The ethnic enclaves created social and spatial divisions; at the same time, they
attracted newly-arrived migrants who naturally gravitated to areas that resembled the
familiarities and kinship of their homelands. These migrant settlements soon became
more and more populated as demand for labour coincided with Singapore’s growth
from a fledgling trading outpost to a major commercial seaport. In the early days of
development, a massive influx of foreign capital and enterprising immigrants entered
Singapore, thereby contributing further to the acceleration of economic growth and
transforming a once sleepy town into a bustling city. During this growth period,
Singapore inherited from the colonial predecessors a modern system of planning
6 A. F. C. Choe

which laid the foundations for urban development. The colonial legacy also included
the inheritance of a physical morphology characterised by its fine-grained compact
urban fabric and a human-scaled streetscape consisting of low-rise shophouse
architecture.
A century later, the urban scene in Singapore became a stark contrast of its early
days. By the 1920s, the city core (Central Area) was experiencing severe issues of resi-
dential overcrowding, poor sanitation, and street congestion. Many European settlers
were relocating from the Central Area to the outlying urban fringe, where larger estate
homes could be built in more open space settings. This transition led to the gradual
blurring of boundaries and overlapping of functional zones within the Central Area,
as earlier settlement patterns conformed less and less to the intentions of the 1822
town plan. In 1927, the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) was formed by the
British colonial administration to help with progressive environmental improvements
such as the introduction of backlanes—for service maintenance and collection of
refuse—between shophouses that once existed back-to-back. The SIT was later
granted greater authority to build low-cost public housing, the first being the Tiong
Bahru Estate in the 1930s. However, the SIT did not produce sufficient numbers of
units to mitigate the rising need for adequate housing made more acute following the
Pacific War (1941–45). Urban conditions in the Central Area dramatically worsened.
The shophouse, which was designed to accommodate a single household, was
partitioned into smaller living quarters which, in many cases, were further subdivided
into cubicles and sublet by tenants or the landlord. This practice of absorbing multi-
ple families in shophouses, many of which had been indiscriminately altered with
extensions and additions, resulted in severe overcrowding. These densities ranged
from 1,200 to 1,700 people per hectare with occasional instances of densities on some
blocks reaching approximately 2,500 people per hectare (Chua, 1989). The over-
crowding situation severely aggravated the health and safety of those living in the
dilapidated shophouses. Ironically, the Rent Control Act of 1947, which sought to
protect tenants from exorbitant rental increases arising from the acute shortage of
housing following the Pacific War, contributed to the physical deterioration of build-
ings as landlords were no longer incentivised to maintain and upkeep their properties.
Elsewhere, slums and squatter settlements were proliferating in open spaces where
salvaged materials such as attap leaves, corrugated iron sheets, and wooden planks
were used in the construction of makeshift dwellings and ancillary spaces for unregu-
lated businesses. These unauthorised developments posed tremendous risks to the
inhabitants and the surrounding environment, especially when activities involving the
use of fire, such as cooking, could not be properly contained and controlled.
It became increasingly obvious to the colonial government that Singapore’s urban
situation would spiral into a vicious cycle unless an intervention was made to regulate
growth and development. This intervention was introduced in the form of the
 CHAPTER 1 | The Early Years of Nation-Building: Reflections on Singapore’s Urban History 7

Singapore Improvement Ordinance (1952), which required the SIT to convene a

work team that would carry out a detailed island-wide survey to help guide future
development. The study was conducted over a period of three years, after which the
team produced a Preliminary Island Plan (1955). This draft plan, which was concep-
tualised by colonial officers at the time, was based mainly on British town-planning
practice and was predicated on assumptions of slow managed growth. In terms of
land use, the draft plan proposed to retain a clear distinction between the core func-
tions of the Central Area for industrial purposes and peripheral functions of outlying
suburbs for self-contained residential communities. The draft plan also favoured
low-rise buildings over high-rise constructions, citing cost and traffic congestion as
liabilities. The draft plan was further refined and formally approved in 1958 as the
Master Plan (Figure 3)—Singapore’s first statutory land use document.
The 1958 Master Plan provided a comprehensive island-wide development
framework for a projected population of two million in 1972, by identifying three
new town sites in Jurong, Woodlands, and Yio Chu Kang as well as prescribing
maximum permissible net residential densities (in persons per acre) for planning
districts within the Central Area. The architects and planners of the 1958 Master

Figure 3. 1958 Master Plan—Singapore’s first statutory land use plan.

Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority.
8 A. F. C. Choe

Plan, however, did not anticipate that Singapore’s rate of growth would quickly
outnumber their projections, nor did they envision the series of political develop-
ments that would alter the course of Singapore’s colonial history and consequentially
pave the path towards full independence as a Republic.

The Road to Independence: Challenges and Opportunities

In 1959, I returned from my architectural and town planning studies in Melbourne
to Singapore at a time of transitional change. Singapore had achieved status as a
self-ruling State through a democratically-elected government in 1959. The newly-
established government was confronted with several major challenges, but the focus
on three key priorities would set the stage for Singapore’s breakaway from poverty
and disorder. The first and most immediate priority was to resolve the acute housing
problem. The SIT could only manage an average of 1,700 housing units per year dur-
ing the post-war period when the population had already exceeded one million (Teh,
1969). A new institution named the Housing and Development Board (HDB) was
therefore created in 1960 to replace the SIT.
Secondly, Singapore could no longer depend on her natural hinterland or rely solely
on her regional port activities for sustained economic stability as more land was required
to accommodate the growing population. In addition, unemployment was on the rise,
resulting in a burgeoning informal sector comprised of itinerant hawkers and petty trad-
ers working in precarious conditions (Figure 4). Economic advancement therefore

Figure 4. Illegal hawkers and traders once plied the streets of Chinatown (left). A specially-
designed shopping environment at People’s Park Complex, a URA sale of site development,
provided modern facilities for vendors (right).
Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority.
 CHAPTER 1 | The Early Years of Nation-Building: Reflections on Singapore’s Urban History 9

became a priority which set in motion the creation of a statutory board, the Economic
Development Board (EDB), in 1961. As I will later illustrate, there was to be great stra-
tegic cooperation between the domains of urban planning and economic development
that helped spur Singapore’s progress from third world conditions to a developed nation.
Lastly, when Singapore gained full independence as a Republic in 1965 following
her separation from Malaysia, the newly-established government led by then Prime
Minister Lee Kuan Yew focused on nation-building for a population that was
approaching two million. Paradoxically, this pressure drove the government to new
heights of courage such that opportunities could be grasped and bold visions adopted,
in this way, allowing dynamic and effective changes to ensue. In the next section,
I relate my experiences on three bold urban programmes that I believe paved a critical
path for Singapore’s transformation and modernisation.

A Young Nation with Bold Urban Plans

In Singapore’s early years as a young nation, there were hardly any trained architects.
For the most part, the transfer of design and planning knowledge was passed down
from colonial administrators to local technicians and draftsmen. When the SIT dis-
solved upon the establishment of the HDB, a large number of British architects and
town planners left Singapore. However, a small cohort of freshly-qualified architects
had just returned to Singapore. I also returned along with this cohort as a graduate
of architecture and town planning, and I initially joined a private architecture firm
where I was seeking to develop my professional career. Shortly after, however, I was
headhunted and invited to join HDB in 1962 as I happened to be the first and only
architect then with town planning qualifications in Singapore.
A dynamic team was appointed by the government to steer the newly-established
HDB. The team included Lim Kim San (HDB’s first Chairman) and Howe Yoon
Chong (HDB’s first CEO), both of whom were neither architects nor planners.
Moreover, Lim Kim San and Howe Yoon Chong had no prior building experience
nor a successor from whom they could take over the reins of SIT’s public housing
mandate. But they were courageous visionary leaders with strategic ideas. Under their
directorship, I was empowered to carry out bold and sweeping public housing pro-
grammes, new town developments, and urban planning ideas never before experi-
mented in Singapore or elsewhere. Although faced with immense challenges, I was
emboldened by the fact that we were all learning together without recourse to sources
of information and we had to improvise and devise our own strategies and methods.
My only advantage is that I was the only one trained in city planning then.
My initial HDB experience was daunting, as the responsibilities borne were
unlike other earlier duties I had held in town planning. The overseas training that
I underwent involved the planning of only small European towns with populations of
10,000 to 30,000 people. At HDB, one is thrust into real world conditions with
10 A. F. C. Choe

national implications—this proved to be a tremendous learning curve. The real world

conditions of Singapore then were indeed extraordinary and a far cry from any of the
case studies I encountered in my University studies. Information on public housing
was sparse then, as few cities in the world had embarked on such daring and massive
public housing initiatives.

Public Housing: Reinventing the Way-of-Living

Immediately after its formation, HDB was tasked with not only eradicating chronic
overcrowding by clearing slums and substandard dwellings in the Central Area, but
also providing permanent homes for people affected by resettlement as well as for
future population growth (Figure 5). Upon surveying the extent of the housing
problem, HDB assessed that 147,000 dwelling units (some of which would include
market housing built by the private sector) would be required to meet their objectives
by 1970 (Yeung, 1973). Thus began an ambitious 10-year programme with a target
of over 50,000 public housing units to be constructed within the first Five-Year Plan
between 1960 and 1965. Recognising the severity of the housing shortage, HDB
delivered basic accommodation with speed and quantity without compromising on
liveability such that, by the end of 1965, the target figure was exceeded with the
completion of nearly 55,000 public housing units (Ibid).
How did HDB achieve the construction of a maximum number of units in mini-
mum time and with the least cost? Firstly, by constructing larger numbers of small
units of one- and two-room flats, HDB was able to meet the housing demands in
terms of quantity. Secondly, by standardising the floor plans as well as sourcing for
affordable and easy-to-assemble construction materials, HDB not only saved on
construction time but also cost. The second Five-Year Plan concluded in 1970, raising
the total stock of public housing units under the management of HDB to over
118,000 (Ibid). In those years, attention to fanciful communal facilities and architec-
tural design details was a luxury that speed and monetary constraints simply did not
permit, but that was to change as Singapore progressed and advanced with experience
and confidence gained. Today, HDB has pushed the frontier for public housing and
estate planning through demonstration projects such as Treelodge@Punggol and
Pinnacle@Duxton which feature environmental design elements and the integration
of public facilities for social, recreational, and commercial activities.

Urban Renewal: A Formula for Conservation,

Rehabilitation, and Rebuilding
My initial years at HDB were steeped in the design of prototype public housing
units and planning and development of new towns that included Queenstown
 CHAPTER 1 | The Early Years of Nation-Building: Reflections on Singapore’s Urban History 11

Figure 5. Poor, unhealthy, and dangerous living conditions of a slum quarter in Singapore’s early
history (top). New HDB one- or two-room flats offered to families affected by resettlement (bottom).
Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority.

and Toa Payoh, both iconic public housing projects through which I gained much
experience. The government and HDB soon realised that providing public housing
alone, however, cannot completely eradicate the acute source of poor housing and
living conditions. Slums and squatters had to be cleared. But such actions could only
12 A. F. C. Choe

be undertaken when sufficient public housing was available to adequately resettle

affected residents.
The Singapore government, through the auspices of the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), deployed Erik E. Lorange in 1962 as an expert
to evaluate Singapore’s readiness for urban renewal. Being the only trained architect
and town planner at the time, I was again tasked by HDB to study, shadow, and assist
Lorange in his three-month study in Singapore. At the end of his review, Lorange
submitted a report to the government outlining Singapore’s readiness to embark on
an urban renewal programme.
In 1963, a second UNDP team of three experts in urban renewal visited
Singapore after the government accepted Lorange’s report. The three experts were
Otto Koenigsberger, an architect-planner, Charles Abrains, a legal advisor on land
issues, and Susumu Kobe, a traffic economist. At my request, I was given two more
architects to study and assist the three experts. Despite the short two-month stay, they
were able to outline a report with the boundaries of the central areas to be renewed.
Accordingly, in 1964, HDB formed an Urban Renewal Unit and I was tasked to
head this special unit. As the importance of slum clearance and urban renewal gained
momentum, the Urban Renewal Unit upgraded two years later to a full-fledged
Urban Renewal Department (URD) within HDB. The URD was responsible for
undertaking land requisition, resettlement, urban renewal, conservation, and sale of
sites for private development.
To better understand how urban renewal was carried out in the developed world,
I embarked on study trips to Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Other
than the United States, the other countries barely carried out or experimented with
urban renewal. The American urban renewal experience was the most revealing; here,
urban renewal received harsh domestic criticisms for its blatant demolition of build-
ings and indiscriminate destruction of neighbourhoods that resulted in the displace-
ment of people, for its development of urban ghettos, and a non-transparent sale of
sites process for private development. Returning to Singapore, I prepared a report
with strong convictions that Singapore would need to approach urban renewal in a
different fashion from that which I had witnessed in the United States. Singapore had
to create her own formula of urban renewal—a formula of sensitive clearance, reset-
tlement, conservation, rehabilitation, and careful sale of land for private participation
and rebuilding.

Government Land Sales: Private Participation

and Economic Development
In order for urban renewal to be impactful at a comprehensive level, contiguous
parcels of land needed to be transferred legally to the government, cleared, and
 CHAPTER 1 | The Early Years of Nation-Building: Reflections on Singapore’s Urban History 13

re-parcelled for redevelopment opportunities. However, much of the land in the

Central Area was subdivided under the earlier colonial planning system into many
small narrow lots that were individually owned by private persons. This fragmented
patchwork of proprietorship complicated the process of land purchase and clearance.
Hence, the Land Acquisitions Act, which was legislated in 1966, enabled the govern-
ment to acquire private land, in support of national development programmes, at
market value compensation to the owner. Within the Central Area, two precincts
better known as South 1 (bounded by Havelock Road, Outram Road, and New
Bridge Road) and North 1 (bounded by Crawford Street, Beach Road, Jalan Sultan,
and Victoria Street/Kallang Road), served as pilot sites for land acquisition and
urban renewal.
One of the earliest land parcels to be redeveloped for public housing for resettle-
ment was the former Outram Prison site situated at the foot of Pearl’s Hill in precinct
South 1 (Figure 6). Built during the colonial period, Outram Prison served as the
largest penitentiary facility until the construction of Changi Prison in 1936. Given
the prime real estate on which Outram Prison was situated and the urgency faced by
a young nation to allocate land in the Central Area for housing resettlement, the
rational decision then was to transfer the functions of Outram Prison to a location
outside the Central Area and to develop the site for higher intensity residential use.
In 1966, the Queenstown Remand Prison was constructed to replace Outram Prison
and, with the site freed up, HDB proceeded to develop 1,000 public housing flats and
a multi-storey shopping complex at Outram Road specifically to resettle a whole com-
munity cleared from People’s Park (Figure 6). Other sites in precincts South 1 and
North 1 were identified for redevelopment potential. By 1968, 85% of the land in
South 1 and North 1 had been acquired for public redevelopment, which resulted in

Figure 6. Outram Prison (left) occupying a strategic site was relocated to make way for
development of public housing and shops (right) for a whole community affected by URA’s
resettlement programme.
Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority.
14 A. F. C. Choe

the completion of 3,200 units of flats and shops with a further 3,000 units under
construction (Choe, 1969) for resettlement and private development.
Following the success of the South 1 and North 1 pilot projects, the subsequent
planning strategy was to redevelop the Central Area in phases. Thus, 15 precincts
were demarcated with seven precincts north of the Singapore River and Central area
(North 1 to North 7) and eight precincts south of the central business district (CBD)
(South 1 to South 8). The strategy was to develop progressively the less complicated
parcels of land at the fringes and advance towards the more challenging sites within
the Central Area. In particular, the strategic location of the Central Area called for a
variety of commercial buildings that would promote economic development. Such
projects needed to be viable in order to attract private participation, which was vital to
the success of urban renewal. In this way, private participation in commercial devel-
opments allowed the government to concentrate mainly on public infrastructure
projects such as public housing.
For a long time, however, the fragmented subdivision of land, with narrow front-
ages for shophouses with multiple ownerships, prevented private development of any
significant value to be built on such plots. The private sector is unable to buy, assem-
ble and clear such small lots into sizeable plots of significant projects. Only the gov-
ernment, through the URD, can acquire, clear, and assemble such small plots into
sizeable parcels for major commercial projects. In addition to making available amal-
gamated land, the URD also offered incentives—such as reduced property tax, easy
repayment of land cost, and accelerated approval of plans—to attract private sector
participation. The URD also embarked on publicity campaigns to educate the public
on the needs and opportunities of urban renewal.
In 1967, 14 sale sites on 99-year leases in the Central Area were selected and
launched publically for tender to the private sector (Choe, 1969). The first sale site,
incidentally, was made available as a result of a fire in 1966 which destroyed an
open-air makeshift market that once occupied the grounds we know today as
People’s Park Complex. People’s Park Complex—the first mixed-use podium and
tower block construction in Singapore, opened in 1973—was designed and devel-
oped by private enterprises following a successful tender bid for the site. In deter-
mining the land use for such sale sites, the URD consulted readily with the Planning
Department. Right from the beginning, the URD was to not only clear slums and
rebuild the CBD but also to generate economic development. Hence, projects
offered to the private sector had to warrant demand in and of itself, which also
ensured the success of the private sector. As such, the EDB was consulted to ascer-
tain industry trends and market demands which could be developed to spur eco-
nomic growth. Projects identified for the 14 sale sites ranged from hotels and
shopping complexes to offices and residential apartments. By 1973, this initial
pilot scheme led to further successive sales, resulting in a total of 45 sites released
 CHAPTER 1 | The Early Years of Nation-Building: Reflections on Singapore’s Urban History 15

through the tender system and attracting $466 million worth of investments
(Chew, 1973). It soon became clear that, as the number of sale sites amplified in
conjunction with the rapid pace of urban renewal, the URD’s workload would not
only outgrow its staff but the scope of work would also diverge more and more
from the mandate of HDB.
I was convinced that the URD needed greater independence and flexibility in
order to effectively and efficiently implement urban renewal programmes beyond
the current scale and pace; thus, I began to advocate for the URD’s autonomy.
Accordingly in 1974, the government established the Urban Redevelopment
Authority (URA) to become a statutory board under the Ministry of National
Development (MND). I was appointed as the first General Manager of the newly-
formed URA, where I intended to serve a brief term after I had completed setting up
the rules, procedures, and launch of the first three sale of sites. Thereafter, my inten-
tion was to return to private practice. However, I agreed to stay at the request of the
Board and I continued on as General Manager of the URA until my resignation
in 1978.

The Significant Role of URA and HDB

The government’s sale of sites programme for private development was the most
important and significant instrument in promoting Singapore’s urban development
as well as economic growth. Under this initiative, URA would identify potential
sites then acquire, clear, and assemble the sites into substantial parcels for major
developments. URA would also conduct research on market demands for particular
commercial projects that would contribute to Singapore’s economic growth—for
example, promoting tourism by building hotels or generating financial services by
constructing offices. In addition, URA would lay down very specific planning and
design requirements for each parcel of land sold. The sale of sites programme by
URA also offers much financial incentive to attract bidders for the sites.
The tender documents clearly stipulate that, aside from the price offered, the
URA panel also places great emphasis on the design when deciding on the winner of
a tender bid. In this way, the process aims to promote good design, nurture and help
discover talented architects, as well as educate developers to appreciate good designs.
The sales programme sprouted a new generation of designs never before seen in
Singapore at that time. For example, the first sale of sites resulted in the People’s Park
Complex (the first large multi-use building with a large atrium) and three large
international class hotels on Havelock Road. Subsequent sales resulted in strikingly
large and well-designed high-rise buildings of various commercial and residential
types in the precincts of Golden Mile, Central Business District (Figure 7), and
Shenton Way (Figure 8).
16 A. F. C. Choe

Figure 7. The early launches of URA’s sale of sites programme introduced skyscrapers and
modern architectural styles to Singapore’s urban skyline. International Plaza in the Tanjong
Pagar district (left). OCBC Building in the Raffles Place district (right).
Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Figure 8. Shenton Way before URA commenced a major sale of sites effort to create a Financial
Centre (left). Shenton Way after redevelopment gave rise to six modern well-designed office
towers along a stretch of former warehouse sites (right).
Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Since its inception, URA has operated independently and alongside the Planning
Department (then under the Prime Minister’s Office) and Research and Statistics
Unit (under MND) to carry out the multifaceted work of nation-building. Over
time, however, there was stronger impetus for the centralisation and streamlining of
 CHAPTER 1 | The Early Years of Nation-Building: Reflections on Singapore’s Urban History 17

planning, development control, sale of sites, and conservation functions that resulted
in the merger of the URA, Planning Department, and Research & Statistics Unit.
Maintaining the name Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the new statutory
board became operational in 1989.
URA and HDB were and still are significant organisations that have contributed
directly to Singapore’s urban development. The striking, attractive, and dramatic
skyline bears testimony to our very rapid growth, elevating Singapore to one of the
most liveable cities in the world.

Long-term Planning for the Future: Genesis

of the 1971 Concept Plan
Most of the discussion thus far has dealt with the intricacies of Central Area rede-
velopment and urban renewal. On a grander scale, planning in Singapore is also an
island-wide endeavour. In order to ensure optimal and judicious use of limited land
resources to accommodate future economic and population growth, Singapore has
systematised a comprehensive and long-range guiding plan for island-wide develop-
ment. In 1967, a Plan of Operation was signed between the Singapore government
and the UNDP for the preparation of a Concept Plan under an initiative called the
State and City Planning Project (SCP).
The SCP drew from the expertise of a multidisciplinary team comprising the
HDB, Planning Department, Public Works Department, and the assistance of the
United Nations. In 1969, the SCP released a draft Concept Plan that made Singapore’s
approach to planning more strategic and forward-looking, gradually supplanting an
otherwise piecemeal and corrective stance towards nation-building. The draft Concept
Plan proposed a long-term vision for the allocation of land and investment of infra-
structure, thus providing strategic directions for the physical development of Singapore
over a 20-year forecast. After two years of further refinements—which included a spe-
cial topics study carried out by the URD for the preparation of a Central Area
Structural Concept Plan that would extend on the island-wide scheme—the Concept
Plan was adopted by the government in 1971.
The 1971 Concept Plan (Figure 9) mapped out a vision for the future develop-
ment of Singapore that can be abstractly represented as a ‘ring’ pattern of self-
sufficient new towns encircling the green Central Catchment area and an East-West
corridor along the southern coast of Singapore connecting major employment hubs
such as Changi Airport (East), Central Business District (Central Area), and Jurong
Industrial Estates (West). The 1971 Concept Plan imparted three urban growth
strategies which, today, are visible components of Singapore’s physical landscape.
Firstly, in terms of spatial organisation, the 1971 Concept Plan promoted a form of
urban development and expansion structured around a ring pattern of circulation.
This ring helped to ensure the safeguarding of land for essential transportation infra-
structure such as the island-wide expressway system, MRT network, and Changi
18 A. F. C. Choe

Figure 9. 1971 Concept Plan.

Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Airport. Secondly, the nodes along the ring provided a spatial framework for the
integrated planning of major land use sectors, namely, high-density residential areas
served by commercial centers, industrial estates, and green spaces, resulting in the
coherent development of self-sufficient new towns. Thirdly, the 1971 Concept Plan
identified the Central Area—situated at the historic city centre and where the two
proposed MRT lines would intersect—as a significant commercial hub for business
and financial activities, which then prompted the series of urban renewal programmes
described earlier.
The 1971 Concept Plan laid the necessary foundations for Singapore’s growth and
promoted a rational planning approach based on grounded calculations and popula-
tion forecasting. Thereafter, subsequent reviews of the Concept Plan would be under-
taken every 10 years to build successively upon the broad strategies and development
policies of earlier Concept Plans. With each new version of the Concept Plan, we learn
more about our past and, in turn, this learning creates new lessons for our future.
Today, URA has evolved its capacity to include many new functions relating to
land development and control. At the same time, URA is continuing the essential tra-
ditions of its predecessor by identifying and conserving architectural heritage while also
charting the urban future of Singapore by building on the successes of earlier plans.
The 1971 Concept Plan is the earliest long-term land use plan whose foundational
 CHAPTER 1 | The Early Years of Nation-Building: Reflections on Singapore’s Urban History 19

principles continue to manifest in the physical landscape of Singapore. The story of

Singapore’s urban history, therefore, would be incomplete without illustrating the
contribution of the 1971 Concept Plan—a hallmark blueprint and a keystone in the
making of modern Singapore at that time. The URA of today, comprising a highly
developed and extremely talented team, has adopted an action oriented plan that can
quickly adapt to the ever-changing demands and needs of society and businesses but
with careful consideration on long term land use, availability of land, and population
and economic growth.

Conclusion: Lessons from the Past are Lessons for the Future
Singapore’s rapid progress of nation-building and urban development is the envy
of many countries. Within 50 short years as an independent city-state, Singapore has
developed into a global hub with modern amenities rivalling advanced urban economies
such as Hong Kong, London, and New York. Today’s image of Singapore, however, is a
sharp contrast against the Singapore of yesteryear. That a small island-nation emerged
from near destitute urban conditions to become one of the world’s wealthiest countries is
indeed a remarkable feat involving cooperation, innovation, and courage. It is these three
qualities that, time and time again, resonate in the story of Singapore’s urban history.
Cooperation was a vital work ethic during an era of limited financial resources
and scarce knowledge capital. In those days, government agencies learnt to adopt a
consultative and collaborative attitude towards their counterparts in the public sector.
By leveraging on the multidisciplinary skills of civil servants and sharing knowledge
across agency lines, a whole-of-government approach to planning was formulated so
as to achieve the best all-round results on public projects for which many lives and
multiple stakeholders were affected.
In the early years, innovation was rampant despite the lack of resources, due to
the necessity for functional housing, amenities, proper sanitation, and efficient traffic
circulation. Such urgent matters served as a powerful driving force for advancements
in planning. Much of the innovation was derived by way of studying and learning
from precedents. Public housing, for example, has gone through a series of design
innovations with each new era producing better improvements over the previous one.
During my initial years with HDB, I studied the early generation of SIT flats in hous-
ing estates such as Tiong Bahru where kitchens and lavatories were communal facili-
ties shared by multiple households in the one-room units built. The HDB flats that
immediately superseded the SIT flats were not only much taller buildings, in order to
maximise the use of land, but also designed such that each dwelling unit was equipped
with its own private kitchen and lavatory as a result of changing social demographics.
Such quantum leaps continued as public housing evolved over the decades with the
introduction of the Build-to-Order and Design, Build, and Sell schemes.
20 A. F. C. Choe

Courage has served as the resilient axle for every pivotal turning point in
Singapore’s urban history. The courage to draw up ambitious visions and bring to
reality bold urban plans through committed implementation enabled Singapore to
overcome challenge after challenge. In the early years, such courage stemmed from
strong political will, good governance, and pragmatic foresight, which were instru-
mental in gaining public support for projects that at first seemed too radical and
ahead of their time. Projects such as high-rise living in HDB flats, acquisition of pri-
vate land for urban renewal, and transportation by means of the MRT network were
initially confronted with public hesitation and scrutiny. However, through sound
planning, rational goals, and testing of pilot studies, the government sought the sup-
port and confidence of the public. In this respect, it could be said that Singapore’s
pioneer generation visibly wore courage on their sleeves.
Singapore’s path was paved 50 years ago with clear intentions and ambitions.
The direction of Singapore’s progress and development was charted early on, allow-
ing key action programmes to be identified and swiftly carried out: eradicate
poverty; provide safe and permanent housing for the masses; revitalise the city cen-
tre; and inject new economic opportunities that would simultaneously create jobs
and raise the employment rate. In those early years, the objectives were discernable
and the will to achieve them was fervent. As we now ponder the urban fate of
Singapore in the next 50 years, we need to ask ourselves if we should continue forg-
ing on the path which we have trekked for five decades, or venture on a trail yet to
be marked. The road ahead is laid with complexities and uncertainties, but by glean-
ing insights from Singapore’s urban history, we learn anew the ways through which
cooperation, innovation, and courage can take the future of urban planning in
Singapore to heights never before imagined.

Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Professor Heng Chye Kiang for the invitation to participate in
this book project. I also wish to thank Dr Yeo Su-Jan and the editorial team for assisting
in the preparation of this article. Lastly, my appreciation to the Urban Redevelopment
Authority and National Archives of Singapore for extending their help and information on
the images used in the chapter.

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