Planning as State-Effect: Calculation, Historicity and Imagination at Marina Bay, Singapore

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how planning practices contribute to the reification of the ‘state’ through the case of Singapore’s new urban waterfront, Marina Bay. Instead of assuming Singapore’s state-led planning model as inherently ‘top-down’ and ‘long-term’, it disaggregates the planning process into three specific modes of abstraction – calculation, historicity and imagination – and analyzes the role of each in reifying the ‘state’ as the singular author of history and development. The case contributes to the literature by illuminating how ‘states’ can appear to have different forms, spatialities, agencies and ultimately consequences, without compartmentalizing planning models based primarily on ideological or geopolitical divisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Singapore
• planning practices
• anthropology of the state
• state-effect

Acknowlegdments

An early version of the paper was presented at Hong Kong University and I thank the participants for their comments. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and editors of the journal for their constructive criticisms.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For example, the report emphasizes that ‘office towers of varying heights will be blended with hotels and open spaces on the Main Boulevard that runs from the Golden Shoe to the sea frontage at Marina South, around Bayside and, of course, in the Central Subzone’ (emphasis mine). URA, 1996: 20.

2. https://www.marina-bay.sg/about-marina-bay/marina-bay-story/1910-1996/singapore-historic-waterfront#1910 (accessed 25 October 2017).

3. The chronology leaps from 1910 to 1971, 1976, 1985, 1986 and 1996. Thereafter, there is an account every year between 2001 and the present.

4. https://www.marina-bay.sg/about-marina-bay/marina-bay-story (accessed 25 October 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a MOE AcRF Start Up Grant R-295–000–100–133.

Notes on contributors

Kah-Wee Lee

Kah-Wee Lee is Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore where he teaches history and theory of urban planning and qualitative methods.