4 - Re-Branding Singapore: Cosmopolitan Cultural and Urban Redevelopment in a Global City-State

Summary

Yes, in the 21st century, Singapore will be a great cosmopolitan city. A vibrant economy. Good jobs. Cultural liveliness. Artistic creativity. Social innovation. Good schools. World-class universities. Technological advances. Intellectual discussion. Museums. Night-clubs and theatres. Good food. Fun places. Efficient public transport. Safe streets. Happy people. This is not a hotchpotch of images concocted to tantalise you. It is a vision within our reach.

(Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Straits Times, 20 December 1996.)

INTRODUCTION

Once again, Goh Chok Tong's colourful and tantalizing image of Singapore in the new millennium has all the hallmarks of the PAP's developmentalism, efficiency, and orderliness written over it. At the same time, it also speaks of a new kind of Singapore which is lively, innovative, fun, and exciting. The idea of Singapore as “cosmopolitan city”, although not new, is an interesting proposition as a national response to globalization. In Chapter 3, I discussed the first distinct policy aimed at developing Singapore into a global city, The Next Lap. That policy was generally confined to the material dimensions of going global: finance, transport, expertise and so forth. However, by the late 1990s the government clearly realized that becoming competitive globally also required a shift in cultural terms. The new global economy demands entrepreneurial and creative workers with the social skills to succeed in a transnationalized workforce of professional cosmopolitan elites. And cities wanting to attract global capital in this new economy, and the professionals who come with it, have to be interesting and attractive enough places. In this chapter I investigate the Singapore state's cultural policy strategies.