ABSTRACT
This chapter explores more important of the challenges and considers how Singapore can respond. It addresses in turn the challenges of limited space for further expansion; challenges of new and disruptive technologies; and the challenges of long-term resilience and social democracy. The chapter examines Singapore’s planning as a never-ending experiment and suggests that it is well-placed to face the threats and seize the opportunities that a turbulent twenty-first century is likely to produce. Singapore has undergone a remarkable transition since independence in 1965 from a city of slums and squatter settlements to its present status as a highly urbanized, global powerhouse. Singapore gained independence at a time when modernist ideas of city form prevailed in the developed world and its large-scale high-rise public housing reflected this, relying on technology, particularly the use of lifts, new materials and building techniques, to enable buildings to go higher. Singapore’s planning system has been at the core of the island-state’s successful development since independence.
