Building the Garden City: The Clean and Green Movement in Singapore, 1965-2010

Abstract

This thesis examines the history and mechanism of building Singapore as a Garden City through a strategy termed in this thesis as the ‘Clean and Green Movement’, from the years 1965 to 2010. The thesis will reveal the role of the Clean and Green Movement in the nation building of Singapore. It explores the politics of greening and attempts to explain the various roles of the governmental agencies involved in promoting the Clean and Green Movement, which can be considered a unique innovation of Singapore. The study presents an alternative perspective to the existing literature on Singapore as a Garden City, which largely describes the political processes involved. The thesis addresses a gap in the literature by analyzing how the Clean and Green Movement shifted historically through three different emphases towards realizing the vision of the Garden City of Singapore. From the 1960s to the 1990s, the Clean and Green Movement had a primarily social emphasis, building basic infrastructure and managing hygiene, while simultaneously ensuring the planting of trees across Singapore to create a livable environment. It will be argued that one negative social outcome of the movement was that it led to the creation of a ‘ghostless’ Garden City where the homogeneity of the developed urban landscape lacked cultural diversity and biodiversity. In the 1990s, there was a shift in emphasis towards the economy, aiming to achieve an appealing ‘clean and green’ image in order to enhance the nation’s attractiveness, particularly to the overseas creative class, investors and tourists. The thesis will argue that this image is a ‘green spectacle’, which accentuates the ‘green experience economy’ and is representative of the Clean and Green Movement’s emphasis on branding. By the later 2000s up until today (2014), influenced by climate-change concerns, the Clean and Green Movement shifted towards an environmental emphasis. The Movement’s transition towards emphasizing the natural environment exposes a conflict with the urban expansion of Singapore. The views, responses and proposals from the media as well as from non-government organizations such as Nature Society Singapore, are evaluated in order to reveal the contradictions of the Movement in relation to its attitude towards the environment, particularly the compromises necessary between economic and environmental concerns. The Clean and Green Movement, which refers to a series of measures taken by the government to achieve the vision of Singapore as a Garden City, has contributed to the urban transformation of Singapore since its independence. Documenting the role of the Clean and Green Movement in nation building allows for a new understanding of Singapore’s urban transformation.