Future Urban Habitation

1 1In order to receive this benefit, the non‐professional carer must be the spouse or a relative by blood, marriage or adoption, up to a third degree of kinship. Under exceptional circumstances, a person from the dependent person's close circle may be considered as a non‐professional carer even though they do not have the above‐mentioned kinship: https://treballiaferssocials.gencat.cat/ca/ambits_tematics/persones_amb_dependencia/persones_cuidadores_no_professionals.

2 2In the case of Barcelona, there are mainly data on indirect indicators of loneliness that allow us to make an approximation on the phenomenon but with certain limitations. According to data from the latest edition of the Barcelona Health Survey (2016), 25% of people aged 65 and over indicate that in the last 12 months they have felt that they lack company, 15.1% of those people have felt excluded from what is happening around them at some point.

Vincent Chua

Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Lisa Joy, the American screenwriter, co‐creator, and executive producer of HBO's science‐fiction series, Westworld , decided to film the show's third season in Singapore, saying in an interview with Channel News Asia : ‘Your architecture is so spectacular and quite singular and unique. There is a poetic shape to the skyline of Singapore that no other city has. There is a beautiful curvature to it that is really unique and interesting.’ In the same interview, she declared: ‘We need to create a world of fiction that was immersive, new, beautiful, gripping and fascinating. Looking outside the window at Singapore right now, where else would we go after seeing this?’ (Channel New Asia, 11 July 2019). This chapter is about that city.

Looking beyond the stunning skyline, breathtaking architecture, and beautiful greenery which, in isomorphic fashion, have become standard features in many other global cities (Khondker 2005; Charney 2007; Beatley 2011), I argue that an ‘inclusive urbanism’, by which I mean the melding of diverse social groups and cultures into a loosely integrated whole (Granovetter 1973), is critical to the present and future success of Singapore. And not just of Singapore – of all global cities.

At the level of everyday life, global cities stand out for the possibilities they create for human interactions. For one, they are heterogeneous; situated at the confluence of global flows of people, goods, and capital, they bring different peoples, cultures, and ideas together (Castells 1996). For another, they have critical mass and density, creating opportunities for intercultural contact (Sassen 1991; Batty 2018). But do these opportunities translate into actual social ties? And how can cities of the future ensure peace, cohesion, and conviviality in the midst of diversity?

This chapter identifies a challenge and offers a solution. The challenge is the polarization manifesting in mature economies, with a growing social divide between class groups – the (global) elites and the rest (the so‐called 1% versus the 99%) (Beaverstock 2002; Hayes 2012; Khan 2012). Responding to this challenge, I propose three ways to foster an inclusive society amidst forces of fragmentation. First, the establishment of common frames of reference has the potential to unite diverse groups. Second, the promotion of voluntary associational life contributes to social learning, sociability, and a more extensive connectivity between sectors of society. Third, the intentional building of personal communities based on the principles of diversity can produce, as the eventual outcome, a more inclusive and cohesive society manifesting as a shared sense of national belongingness.

As ‘a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals’ (Wirth 1938, p. 8), a city opens up opportunities for social networking. These three qualities – size, density, and heterogeneity – inevitably increase the number of possible interactions: ‘the potential number of people we can select from increases as the square of the population of the city itself’ (Batty 2018, p. 4). And it isn't simply numbers of possible contacts that increase. The city also offers a wide range of types of contact: ‘the personal traits, the occupations, the cultural life, and the ideas of members of an urban community, may therefore, be expected to range between more widely separated poles than those of rural inhabitants’ (Wirth 1938, p. 11).

Urbanites have more latitude when selecting contacts. They may choose to ‘acquire membership in widely divergent groups, each of which functions only with reference to a single segment of his personality’ (Wirth 1938, p. 16). Wellman (2001) terms this: ‘networked individualism’. Conventional wisdom says communities are spatially bounded entities when, in fact, communities today are personal and unique to individuals.

Personal in two senses of the word. First, every person has a personal network to call his/her own, made up of friends, family, and others, who may or may not be living in close proximity to the person. Communities today comprise ties both near and far (Chua et al. 2018). Second, every person is assumed to be responsible for cultivating his/her own network. Rainie and Wellman (2012) put it this way: ‘Networked individualism downloads the responsibility – and the burden – of maintaining personal networks on the individual. Active networking is more important than going along with the group. Acquiring resources depends substantially on personal skill, individual motivation, and maintaining the right connections’ (p. 125). City‐dwellers build social worlds ‘according to me’ (Chua et al. 2011). They curate portfolios of ties and are autonomous managers of their own social contacts (Rainie and Wellman 2012).

Second, perhaps because they are exposed to diversity whether they like it or not, urbanites are more tolerant of ‘the other’ than their non‐urban counterparts. Cities today are characterized by educational, racial, and religious heterogeneity (Beggs et al. 1996), and urbanism fosters a ‘way of life’ (Wirth 1938, p. 1), which includes a greater tolerance and willingness to accommodate differences, and this has increased over time (Tuch 1987). Consequently, although global cities are centres of diversity, they are marked by a threshold level of tolerance and an ethos of ‘intercultural citizenship’ (van Leeuwen 2010, p. 631). Many city‐dwellers are ‘cultural omnivores’, willing to partake of a variety of cultural practices and experiences (Peterson and Kern 1996). They have learned to adapt, be flexible, and code‐switch according to the variety of their contacts (Coser 1975). They are universalists, spanning the boundaries that divide groups and accommodating different cultures (Appiah 2006). Ultimately, relationships in urban contexts are more specialized, more likely to be based on friendship than on kinship or neighbourhood alone.

But do the opportunities for contact translate into actual relationships? Or do other forces thwart the bridging of groups? Here is where policy design is especially important. The city may increase the sheer number of different peoples and cultures and force them to interact, but are there mechanisms to ensure their social worlds meet in meaningful ways?

In Singapore, public housing shows how policy design can make a difference to social relationships. The Housing Development Board, the public housing agency in charge of 80% of the housing stock in Singapore, (HDB), has a strict policy of ethnic desegregation. Each public housing estate is designed with a microcosm of society in mind. The estates are socially mixed, comprising residents from the four Singaporean racial groups: Chinese (75%), Malay (15%), Indian (8%), and Others (2%). This has allowed the social mixing of racial groups in everyday life (Sim et al. 2003).