Political Legitimacy and Housing: Singapore's Stakeholder Society

by Beng-Huat Chua

Overview

Singapore's successful public housing programme is a source of political legitimacy for the ruling People's Action Party. Beng-Huat Chua accounts for the success of public housing in Singapore and draws out lessons for other nations. Housing in Singapore, he explains in this incisive analysis, is seen neither as a consumer good (as in the US) nor as a social right (as in the social democracies of Europe). The author goes on to look at the ways in which Singapore's planners have dealt with the problems of creating communities in a modern urban environment. He concludes that the success of the public housing programme has done much for Singapore.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134705986
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/11/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Chua, Beng-Huat

Table of Contents

Preface, Acknowledgements, Introduction, 1. Public Housing policies compared: US, ex-socialist nations and Singapore, 2. From city to nation: planning Singapore, 3. Resettling a Chinese village: a longitudinal study, 4. Modernism and the vernacular: public spaces and social life, 5. Adjusting religious practices to different house forms, 6. A practicable concept of community in high rise housing environment, 7. Public Housing and political legitimacy, 8. Return of the imaginary Kampung as resistance

Editorial Reviews

Examines the success of Singapore's public housing program and its role as an instrument of social control, placing it in a comparative perspective with the free-market system in the US and the planned economies of socialist nations. Reveals that housing in Singapore is seen neither as a consumer good, as in the US, nor as a social right, as in the social democracies of Europe, and shows how the success of public housing has strengthened the legitimacy of the ruling elite and the longevity of the single-party government. Of interest to public policy analysts and administrators. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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