Urban space in Singapore is a scarce resource upon which different groups in the city draw. In this way, urban space is contested territory. This book presents a review of the politics and rationale of spatial planning, as well as the social processes involved in the provision and shaping of urban space - industrial, residential, retail, public space - which affects its availability to the citizenry in the city. The focus is on research done in the city-state of Singapore, considering what the urban space we now have means to Singaporeans and the implications for space in the future.

Emphasis is also placed on a forward looking discussion of the processes - social, economic and political - that have shaped the meaning of urban space and its use at the everyday and more episodic levels, and current concerns among the international research community will be highlighted in the discussion of our needs for space and its planning here in Singapore.

Ooi, Giok Ling. 2004. Future of Space: Planning, Space and the City. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.

(294 pages, ISBN 981 210 273 6)