Local heritage and place-making in residential heartlands in Singapore

This thesis explores the topic of local heritage and its impact on place-making. In literature and in practice, there is growing focus on heritage at the local level and how it would give voice to residents and community stakeholders to interpret and express what they value in their lived environments. It also allows for a greater variety of ordinary, everyday elements to be considered in this broadened definition of heritage. Situated in the context of residential heartlands in Singapore, the age-old tension between redevelopment and heritage conservation, the growing civic awareness and interest in local heritage issues, and the large-scale redevelopment on the horizon form the impetus for this research. The research aims to understand what people consider as local heritage in residential heartlands (using the categories of ‘Physical elements’, ‘Events/ activities’, ‘Food’ and ‘People’), whether different local heritage elements influence place identity, place attachment and community spirit differently, and key factors that are influencing this relationship. The research was structured into two main phases. Phase 1 involved the use of an online survey questionnaire to gather opinions from the general public on their views of local heritage. Phase 2 involved a series of focus group discussions with residents from mature, middle-aged and young towns and semi-structured interviews with high-level officers from three relevant government agencies and a heritage group. The research findings show that residents’ perception of local heritage is mainly driven by social memories whereas the government agencies are mainly guided by a formal set of criteria. There is a wide variety of things which residents assign meaning to, especially for ‘Physical elements’ and ‘Food’. Residents however found it more challenging to identify ‘Events/activities’ and ‘People’ that are significant to their towns. ‘Physical elements’ were also found to have the strongest association with the different dimensions of place-making, underscoring its importance in place-making. ‘Food’ had a moderate association, and ‘Events/activities’ and ‘People’ showed up to be the weakest. Four key factors were identified that shed some light into these relationships, namely, perceived ubiquity and pragmatism which add challenges to the relationship, and awareness and participation which can strengthen the relationship. From the findings, further research is recommended to investigate the broader forces that lead to perceived ubiquity and pragmatism. The notion of ‘place insideness’ can also be explored further to understand how people conceive themselves as ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ of a place and whether factors such as scale matters. Practical recommendations to planners include leveraging on technology and social media to raise awareness and encourage community participation and organising more town-based programmes and initiatives focusing on opportunities for collective involvement, relevance to different generations and exchange of knowledge and stories amongst long-time and new residents.