Building Resilient Neighbourhoods in Singapore The Convergence of Policies, Research and Practice

This book examines how institutional and environmental features in neighbourhoods can contribute to social resilience, highlighting the related socio-demographic issues, as well as the infrastructure, planning, design and policies issues. It is divided into three themes – infrastructure, planning, and community. Infrastructure examines how physical features such as parks and street patterns influence neighborliness and resilience, while planning studies how urban design enhances social interactions. Lastly, community discusses policies that can forge social bonds, either through racial integration, grassroots activities, or social service. Overall, the book combines research and empirical work with scholarly models of resilience and governance philosophy, focusing on Singapore’s urban planning and social policies.

Chan-Hoong Leong is the Head of the Social Lab and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), National University of Singapore (NUS).  He graduated with a PhD in Psychology from the Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) and has an M.Sc. in Statistics from NUS.  He currently serves as the PI for the Youth Study on Transitions and Evolving Pathways in Singapore (Commissioned by the National Youth Council), and the State of the Overseas Singaporeans Study (Commissioned by the Overseas Singaporean Unit, MCCY). Chan-Hoong was consulting editor for the International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2013-2014), and editor of the 2013 Special Issue, Multiculturalism: Beyond Ethnocultural Diversity and Contestations. He has been a reviewer for various journals such as Applied Psychology: An International Review and the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, and has served as an independent reviewer for research grant applications at the IsraelScience Foundation and the Israel Ministry of Science, Technology and Space.  He is currently a member of the National Integration Council Workgroup on the Community.

Lai-Choo Malone-Lee is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Asian Cities, NUS. She received her masters in Town Planning from the University of Sydney, and her Ph.D. at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan under a Ronpaku Fellowship. She is a specialist in urban issues, having worked extensively with the Singapore government, taught and researched on various aspects of urban policies, with a specific focus on sustainability and its nexus with development, economic growth and city culture. She is Principal Investigator of several funded research projects, including one that applies robust indicators to assess sustainability performance in relation to sustainable growth in cities. She has a strong portfolio of projects focusing on Asian cities, including urban regeneration, both state-ledand community-based; as well as planned ecological cities and their sustainability profiling. Regionally, she is a consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). She is a member of Singapore’s National Parks Board and was recently appointed to the editorial board of Sustainable Earth, a new international journal by Springer Nature.