Improving “Native” Housing: Sanitary Order, Improvement Trust and Splintered Colonial Urbanism

The above, an excerpt from a 1910 newspaper report on “Insanitary Singapore,” reflects a prevalent sentiment towards the British colony in the early twentieth century. It was a view that persisted, prompting major housing and sanitary reform in the post-World War II period. Indeed, perceptions of Singapore as a singularly “insanitary” city and a “disgrace” to the colonial administration underlay what might aptly be called a “sanitizing fervor” which brought about housing and planning improvements.