Urban Planning in Singapore
A-
AY21/22 S1
The course is about the history of urban planning in Singapore. It goes through the ideas that past pioneers have envisioned for the perfect city, and how they have been implemented in real life. Think about big European figures like Ebenezer Howard and his Garden City movement, or the unique development of Milton Keynes. Theoretical concepts are quite intuitive and make sense. For example, quite a bit of emphasis is placed onto decentralisation of activity, which means that different activities should be spread out across the city, so that people don't have to travel too far to get to where they want to go. This is a concept that is quite prevalent in Singapore, as we have many different town centres, each with their own unique identity.
The lectures go through quite a lot of Concept Plans and Master Plans in Singapore, which are essentially the blueprints for how Singapore should be developed. The Concept Plan is the more high-level plan, which talks about the general layout of the city, and where the major developments should be. The Master Plan is the more detailed plan, which talks about the specifics of the city, like where the roads should be, where the parks should be, and where the residential areas should be.
Not too difficult to understand, but memorising all these different plans becomes quite challenging. Because you need to give these as examples in the exams. The finals are just essay-based questions, very much like those you'd find in Econs. If you don't have decent general knowledge of developments in Singapore, then I think you'll have a tough time coming up with your answers and examples. But if you have a rough understanding of what is happening in Singapore, then you should be fine.
Workload is quite low, just a couple of tutorial participation points, and a group project. For the group project, you are to identify an urban planning problem in Singapore, and come up with a PW-like solution for it. A simple report and presentation. My group decided to do a project on Hawker Centres and how to get more young people to eat there. There was also two groups which did theirs on urban heat sinks, so the scope can be pretty much anything.
I'm quite lucky I got this course, because I really can't imagine myself taking the others. This one is much safer and more enjoyable.