It’s been over a year since we embarked on this website as part of our final-year project and we’re still at it! We recently added a new story about maids reclaiming a public walkway in the heart of Orchard Road for their picnics and there will be more in the months to come.

In the past months, we’ve also gotten a bit of attention from around the web. Our story about Barber Lee got featured on CNNGo.com and The Online Citizen. Unfortunately, the latter reframed our story and the beauty of Barber Lee’s creativity in reclaiming his own space got lost in a discussion about the rich-poor divide instead. Elsewhere, Youth.SG  also interviewed us for their Do Good Interview section too.

On another note, we’ve learnt that the skateboarders at Margaret Drive will have to move out by July because Block 6C will be demolished for redevelopment. Do visit them before it goes!

Finally, we’re always open to new stories, so if you’ve got a tip-off or an idea about people reclaiming land in Singapore, do contact me at justin[at]justrambling.sg.

A group of residents living in Marsiling Rise have come together to question their Town Council’s decision to remove an assortment of trees that they planted into the ground and have tended to for a decade. It was first reported on Today newspaper and was followed by a response from the Town Council. Not satisfied with the developments, a resident wrote into the Straits Times Forum today questioning the Town Council’s actions against the call for making Singapore into a garden city.

I headed down to Marsiling Rise today and it was quite a sight to see how the ground-floor residents of Block 103 to Block 127 have created a pathway of gardens outside their homes. Against the backdrop of a grass slope of Woodlands Town Park East, these residents’ gardens add on to a unique green corridor that these four-storey blocks face.

The current problem arises because the resident planted some trees that into the ground of the estate’s common property. As we’ve seen in several cases in our story, Town Councils today are okay with potted plants but will clamp down when one plants into the land that is managed by them. The land, common property, is meant for all residents to enjoy but under such tight management by the Town Councils, they have been usually left alone instead.

According to the news report, some residents support the decision to remove the trees because it is unsightly. We think that is a convenient solution. How about bringing the residents together to come up with a garden that is aesthetically pleasing instead of just removing it? Based on the above gardens, I’m sure the residents can create something beautiful. Plus, the community can get to work together to solve their problem.

The Town Council’s other solution of asking residents to plant in the community gardens set aside for them (left) smacks of a convenient excuse to manage things Singapore-style. Want to protest? Go to Speaker’s Corner. Want to garden? Go to a community garden.

Yet by setting aside land for singular purposes, we not only make the country smaller than it actually is, we return to a banality that pervades our environment — everything has its place in this grand masterplan that we are living in.

Two integrated resorts, ION Orchard, the Singapore Sports Hub — it’s funny how a small Singapore always has such grand plans for its city.

But sometimes, the way to go is starting small.

Small changes are appealing for many reasons. They’re cheap, for one thing. Also, what works can be easily expanded, and what doesn’t work can be as easily terminated or altered.

This is from a short article in City Journal, where several examples of how small changes in other cities have made it a better place to live in. In this city so enamored with the grand and the glitzy, we think that this is something our city planners can pay better attention to — all the small things.

“…[N]egotiated territories are nevertheless, authentic and creative attempts by city dwellers in shaping their own immediate environment. What these territories lack in sophistication and refinement of professionally conceived spaces are compensated by the ingenious use of limited resources at hand, the improvisional response to site and the solidarity of collective local actions…”

What we have identified as “reclaimed land” was labelled as “negotiated territories” in  a paper that Assistant Professor Thomas Kong of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago wrote in 2001 about Singapore. Despite the striking similarities in our project, this is actually the first time we’re seeing this paper! Kong’s approach is much more academic but the insights and conclusions reached are highly similar to ours even though 8 years has passed between the two. The meticulous field work done by Kong and his assistants make this a worthy read for the details of how people “reclaim land”.

Singapore climbed up four places this year to number 18 on Monocle magazine’s Top 25 Most Liveable Cities. According to Monocle, this year, it re-looked the criteria that measures over 40 cities based on public transport, education, cultural outlets, crime, hours of sunshine and global flight connections. In addition, the magazine also looked at factors such as chain store pollution (the number of international brand food outlets and retailers versus the total mix), ease of opening a business and major infrastructure improvements currently underway.

The upcoming casinos in Singapore and its reputation for being a business-friendly city definitely score in these new factors and probably  explain this year’s rise. Monocle’s also suggested that one way to fix the city is to allow more media freedom.

Going by comments to the Straits Times (ST) report on this survey, Singaporeans readers seem to agree with Monocle’s view on media freedom as some see ST’s coverage as nothing more than part of a government agenda to make the city look good. As for the actual results, many think that Singapore is more liveable for the rich businessman than ordinary citizens.

It seems that love is in the air of this city at last. After launching My New Singapore recently, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan spoke to the Straits Times’ Insight (Love and the City, April 24) about how memories were important in fostering Singaporeans love for this city and how such feelings will make this city not just liveable, but lovable.

When you feel for this place, people will think twice about littering, about dirtying the place. They will think about how they interact with fellow Singaporeans. It’s that sense of being part of this place, being part of something special.
Mah Bow Tan, National Development Minister  

Yesterday, Minister Mah also announced the upcoming Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize to recognise those who have helped contribute to creating a vibrant, liveable and sustainable city. Nominations for the award begins in June.

But awards and state initiatives aside, how do ordinary Singaporeans feel and cope with living in this city? Prof Lai Ah Eng’s recent working paper A Neighbourhood in Singapore: Ordinary People’s Lives ‘Downstairs’ for the Asia Research Institute provides an ethnographic answer. The paper looks at Marine Parade residents and the daily interactions in their public housing space and concludes that seemingly ordinary places to urban planners are actually inspiration for artists and memory markers for communities. And at the end of the day, people just want to have a say in how their city is built and planned.

In this economic downturn, why not save some money from traveling overseas and tour Singapore instead? That’s what the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) hopes to achieve in its latest campaigns to encourage Singaporeans to rediscover this city. At a keynote speech made at its annual Corporate Plan Seminar, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan outlined its upcoming programme My New Singapore that will include exhibitions and tours to various local attractions. 

“I hope that when Singaporeans rediscover Singapore, we will realise what a special little city we have and perhaps, we will love our city even more.” 
Mah Bow Tan, National Development Minister 

There is a lot to love about this city and we think it is more than what URA has in mind. Besides some of the places it plans to take Singaporeans like  Sungei Buloh, Changi Boardwalk and the new Marina Bay, all grand state initiatives, what is missing is getting people involved in their own city! We can fall in love in our city even more by being an active participant in its creation instead of being distracted by how lovely the state has made it.

So on top of holding exhibitions to outline what plans are in store for neighbourhoods, why not hold tea sessions with residents to solicit ideas on how to make their housing estates lovable? How about holding tours that show ordinary Singaporeans living and making this their city?

Moreover many of the examples mentioned by in Minister Mah’s speech are nature spaces and this seems to be a deliberate strategy to use nature to soften the effects of a crowded city as pointed out in Spaced Out, a recent opinion piece in IS-Magazine on city planning here. There are more ways to love and seek leisure in this city beyond going green and it’s just waiting to be discovered!

Soccer may be the favourite sport of many Singaporeans but  finding a public field to play the game used to be the hardest thing to do!

Tak Giu (2005), a local film by Jacen Tan and his team at Hosaywood tells the tale of three boys and their quest to find a space to play the sport here — a depiction that any Singaporean soccer lover can definitely connect with.

The film helped to open up a discussion on this problem and soon after, the authorities made public fields and school soccer fields more accessible to recreational games.

This was also one of our inspirations when we started on Reclaim Land and we highly recommend you watch the film that is available online on YouTube.

A group of residents of Bukit Panjang have been farming on state-owned land in their neighbourhood thanks to the cheap monthly rent offered by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). According to a Lianhe Zaobao report, SLA has been allowing such community initiatives take over these empty plots of land at lower than market rates since 2002 with its Temporary Occupation License. At just three cents per square metre, renting land the size of a soccer field would cost $210 a month as compared to the prevailing market rates of up to $2800.Besides farming, communities have also set up basketball courts, mini gardens and facilities for archery at 190 sites all over the island.

SLA said that rather than let these empty plots that are marked for future use remain unused, it decided to open them up for community use on a temporary basis. The only conditions are that the land is well-maintained and not use for commercial purposes. Currently, it has 14,000 hectares worth of such land, the equivalent of 20,000 soccer fields and you can find a full list of where they are here.

It is great to hear that the state is thinking beyond economics in land use as Prof Ho Kong Chong argued, and it reminds us of our folks in Balik Kampung. We’ll like to hear more communities take the initiative in deciding how to use the space around them. Tell us if you’re involved in such a community or you have plans to start one!