GEOP830: Sustainability Assessment of Singapore City Plans (2019)

This report provides a critical assessment of Singapore's city-wide sustainability plans, focusing on the nation's commitment to sustainable development goals. It examines various aspects, including strategic urban planning, land use policies, transportation initiatives aimed at reducing traffic congestion, and housing plans centered on public housing systems like HDB units. The report evaluates the effectiveness of these plans in addressing issues such as water shortage, pollution, and deforestation. It also includes a personal perspective on the importance of sustainable development, emphasizing the integration of environmental, social, and economic needs. The conclusion highlights Singapore's unique position as a city-state balancing Western-style development with Eastern-style tranquility, and its efforts to become a technology center while maintaining order and efficiency. The report references various academic sources to support its analysis and arguments.

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Assessment of City Plans for Singapore
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Executive Summary
Singapore as a state has embarked on the utilization of the Blue objectives of the sustainable
development in the country. The sustainable blueprint, in the country mainly developed with the
aim of assisting to achieve both the plans and national visions of the people living in the country.
This will in turn help in supporting the diverse needs as well as the overall growing aspirations
among the Singaporeans. The blueprint has different benefits tuned to it and these include
creating better home, future as well as environment with unique opportunity for the native
citizens. The sustainable development in the county has different targets for the major categories.
Some of the issues affecting the Singapore city include traffic congestion, water shortage,
inadequate housing as well as pollutions of water, air and deforestation.
Introduction
Over the years, cities have continued to present a makeable sustainability conundrum. Although
most of the cities have developed the framework and strategic planning for providing the
services and the infrastructure systems for the larger populations, the aspects still face various
challenges. Principally, most of the cities have recorded incredibly inefficient systems as far as
the norm is concerned. Furthermore, major cities in the world cover approximately 2% of the
over earth's surface. Singapore city is defined as an island and makeable city-state located in the
Southeast Asia. The town lies in the amicable of one degree about the north of the equator. This
is denoted as 137km as well as 85 miles from the north part of the equator. It is surrounded by
the Malay Peninsula on the southeastern tip as well as the Indonesia's Riau Islands on the south
region (Jabareen 2006 p.38). The city is surrounded by the Peninsular Malaysia which exists
along the north.in addition to this, the Singapore boundary comprises of the one makeable main
island with the other related 62 other islets.

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There has been the reclamation of the land, and this has been carried out extensively and
thus, increasing the area by about 23%. The country recorded a makeable transition change
since it transformed in a single generation to a developed state from the parametric developing
country.
Nevertheless, cities also record the highest levels of consumptions of the world's
resources, and this estimated at 75% (Fang and Yu 2017 p.126). The high levels of expenditures
grounded on the high population of people living in the cities as compared to those in the rural
setup. Thus, the analogy of high consumptions of the resources in the towns can result in both
the reduction in the natural resources as well as climatic changes in the long run. Thus, most of
the urban administrators face the immense challenge of trying to the cities more sustainable. The
problems range from the inefficient buildings and the traffic jams to the housing as well as social
inequality in the major towns. In addition to this, most of these problems are always impossible,
sophisticated as well as hard to curb by the urban administrators. Thus, some of the cities have
encompassed on the application of the innovative urban and strategic planning, governance
models as well as technological use to solve the immense challenges in due course. The map
diagram below indicates the position and the location of the Singapore city (Houston et al. 2018
p.212).

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Singapore City Elements
Streetlights
In the corner of the night, the city of Singapore illuminates. The shocking horizon reflects
off of the Singapore River and lights up the sky. On the waterway there aren't only straight up
high rises, there is even a particular structure which has curved sides and looks as if a space
dispatch has arrived over its rooftop (Han et al. 2018 p.135).
Sustainability Planning in Singapore City
The strategic planning for the urban development in the Singapore City is critical and
essential. It is a subject which is considered to be under thorough scrutiny at the moment. The
analysis for the overall planning mainly illustrated as indicated in the figure below (Kaur 2018
p.2).
Land Use Planning and Policy

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The evaluation for the land policy in the city mainly illustrated as indicated in the map below
(Tablada and He 2018 p. 119).
Map showing the land Use Model for the Sustainable Urban Planning in Singapore City
(Garrett 2016 p.1948)
Transport Sector
The city is encouraging the adaptation of the public transport since the norm has immense
benefits. In essence, the system is useful as well as environmentally-friendly as compared to the
other means such as private cars. The urban planners are also working on the rail network as a
mechanism of enhancing the public transport system and making it more convenient in due
course (Iizuka, Miyata and Watanabe 2018 p. 541). Furthermore, there are measures which have
put into consideration to regulate the car ownership in the city as a mechanism to ease the traffic
congestions in the city. The rollout for the overall process mainly illustrated as indicated in the
diagrammatic figure below (Tkachenko, Bricker and Jarvis 2015, November p. 211-220).

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Figure Showing the Strategic Plan for Traffic Decongestion (McFarlane and Söderström 2017
p.312)
Housing Plan
The planning strategy for most of the Singapore people is centre on the public housing
system. Most of the people in the town prefer living in the makeable HDB units. These units
have both the autonomy as well as the flexibility which is grounded around the panning
amenities. The amenities include office, retails, public transportation as well as recreational
facilities. The city has a limited amount of space, and therefore, it is vital to ensure that the
available land is utilised effectively for erecting that housing which improves the living
standards of the people without compromising any element. The essence of adopting the HDB
hub is that it is capable of providing the public transportation, retails as well as recreational
activities in one makeable compact area. The centre can serve the people living in other types of
the housing as well as those living in the flats. Thus, most people will be able to access all the
necessities at their doorsteps. The system will be similar to that of the Victoria, however; the
only difference it will be conducted by the HDB at the expense of the overall local council
(Kitchin, Maalsen and McArdle 2016 p.93).
Personal Position on Sustainable Development

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I believe that sustainable development is critical and fundamentally important. It actually
involves various stakeholders as per my individual understanding. This ranges from the
community, regions as well as various countries across the globe. All stakeholders work with the
aim of improving the quality of life of the present generation while at the same time assist in
protecting the future generation ability to ensure that the life quality is enhanced for them as
well. I also believe that sustainable development is a norm which integrates the environmental,
social as well as well economic needs for different individuals in the society. Preferably, it
assists in ensuring that there better solutions which the community can borrow and apply in
tackling the sophisticated challenges affecting the environment as a whole. I can also attest that
sustainable development is an amicable aspect which gives stewardship regarding the needed
resources for the future generation. I having established that the earth resources are often
limited, thus I propose for the decisive utilization of the available resources by making both the
innovation and conservation mandatory. This will make different individuals with vast options as
well as views to come together and discuss the mechanism of working together to solve the
issues at hand.
Conclusion
Singapore is regarded as an island as well as a nation, yet maybe its best depiction is that
of the city-state. Like the incredible city-conditions of the past, it offers development and request
in the highest degree. Its mix of Western-style advancement and Eastern-style quiet appears to
display the better of the two halves of the globe: It's a cutting edge city where you feel safe
promenading the lanes, and it's an Asian business focus that is a model of effectiveness.
Singapore is additionally a multicultural city, and near one-fourth of its populace are exiles or

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outside specialists from everywhere throughout the world. Known for its longing to turn into the
innovation centre of Asia, Singapore is the most wired nation in the locale. Singapore imparts
another characteristic to authentic city-expresses: Its experts firmly trust that they can protect
existing conditions with guidelines against nearly everything without exception that - in their
view - could agitate the feeling of serenity. In all actuality, guests will discover the spot isn't as
prohibitive as the excellent arrangements of weighty fines for such things as littering and
jaywalking recommend. A few guests to Singapore leave singing the gestures of recognition of a
general public that "works," while others feel the legislature's close habitual obsession with
neatness and request comprehends the word.

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References
Fang, C. and Yu, D., 2017. Urban agglomeration: An evolving concept of an emerging
phenomenon. Landscape and Urban Planning, 162, pp.126-136.
Garrett, B.L., 2016. Picturing urban subterranea: Embodied aesthetics of London’s
sewers. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 48(10), pp.1948-1966.
Han, J., Liang, H., Hara, K., Uwasu, M. and Dong, L., 2018. Quality of life in China's largest
city, Shanghai: A 20-year subjective and objective composite assessment. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 173, pp.135-142.
Houston, D., Hillier, J., MacCallum, D., Steele, W. and Byrne, J., 2018. Make kin, not cities!
Multispecies entanglements and ‘becoming-world’in planning theory. Planning Theory, 17(2),
pp.190-212.
Iizuka, S., Miyata, M. and Watanabe, K., 2018. Assessment of Future Urban Climate After
Implementation of the City Master Plan in Vinh City, Vietnam. In Sustainable Houses and
Living in the Hot-Humid Climates of Asia (pp. 541-548). Springer, Singapore.
Jabareen, Y.R., 2006. Sustainable urban forms: Their typologies, models, and concepts. Journal
of planning education and research, 26(1), pp.38-52.

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Kaur, J., 2018. Impact Assessment of Access to Basic Services for Urban Poor in Chandigarh
City, India. Asian Journal of Public Affairs, 11(1), p.e2.
Kitchin, R., Maalsen, S. and McArdle, G., 2016. The praxis and politics of building urban
dashboards. Geoforum, 77, pp.93-101.
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intensive to a knowledge-intensive smart urbanism. City, 21(3-4), pp.312-328.
Newman, P., 2014. Biophilic urbanism: a case study on Singapore. Australian Planner, 51(1),
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Tablada, A. and He, Y., 2018. Modeling City Patterns for Urban Ventilation: Strategies in High
Density Areas of Singapore. In Designing Cooler Cities (pp. 119-135). Palgrave Macmillan,
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Tkachenko, N., Bricker, S. and Jarvis, S.A., 2015, November. To dig or not to dig? Place and
perception in subsurface housing. In Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-
Engineering Sustainability (Vol. 171, No. 4, pp. 211-220). Thomas Telford Ltd.