Publications

In Singapore, most land is state-owned, with the state generally issuing leasehold estates via state leases of not more than 99 years , depending on the intended land use. Naturally, the value of a leasehold estate, which erodes over time as the lease approaches the end of its term, is a key component of the premium charged for lease renewals, or the tax imposed for permission given in relation to a development that would increase the value of the land. By law, the state valuation of leasehold land is prescribed by a leasehold relativity table colloquially known as ‘Bala’s Curve’ or ‘Bala’s Table’. Since its adoption in 1948, however, the underlying assumptions and discount rate inherent to the curve have not been disclosed. This paper aims to deconstruct or reverse engineer Bala’s Table to derive the best fit model of the curve. Doing so allows policymakers to evaluate whether the model parameters align with prevailing economic realities, and if not, modify them to reflect the market and more accurately value leasehold estates for calculating taxes and premiums.
 

This study adds to the growing literature on mobile platforms by examining the performance of the Singapore MaRTy (SMaRTy) in conducting mobile micrometeorological measurements along a designated route in an urban park in Singapore, reflecting a pedestrian walking experience. The main objective of the study was to calculate the sensor lag for the mobile climate measurements: Air Temperature (TA), and Relative Humidity (RH) of SMaRTy along a designated route in an urban park in Singapore based on data from fixed stations (HOBO sensors) in two significant synoptic meteorological periods during the Northeast and Southwest monsoons. Statistically significant regression models were obtained for the two study periods. For the TA, the regression models for the Southwest monsoon yielded higher R2 (0.85–0.99) and lower Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) (0.34–0.57) than those for the Northeast monsoon (R2: 0.09–0.90, and RMSE: 0.53–0.71). However, diurnal variations in cloud cover affected the regression models of SMaRTy, with more cloudy conditions resulting in weaker correlations. Overall, results suggest that mobile climate measurements via SMaRTy along a designated route, when corrected for lag, yield accurate data that can be applied toward urban climate analysis.

By examining China’s refugee policies from 1949 to 1982, this article demonstrates how the Chinese state redefined “return” and “refugee” to serve shifting political objectives. While China is often perceived as a source, rather than a host, of asylum seekers, it hosted over 320,000 displaced migrants—primarily ethnic Chinese from Southeast Asia—during the Cold War. Through a systematic discourse analysis of 382 People’s Daily articles, we identify four state narratives—diaspora, diplomatic tool, ideological sanctuary, and legal duty—that structured how China labeled displaced migrants, interpreted their sentiments, and determined their settlement. These models evolved dynamically: from the 1950s to the late 1970s, China framed displaced migrants as both diasporic returnees and victims of foreign persecution to bolster its legitimacy. During the Cultural Revolution, they were recast as Maoist returnees seeking ideological redemption. By 1978, the state invoked international legal norms by portraying them as “refugees” to secure global assistance amid the Indochinese refugee crisis. We argue that China’s refugee discourse functioned as a flexible political instrument that unsettled rigid distinctions between voluntary and forced migration. Our findings advance a constructivist understanding of migration categories and offer a historically grounded critique of refugee politics beyond Western-centric Cold War narratives.

This case is set in February 2025, when Chang Hwee Nee, CEO of the National Heritage Board (NHB), a statutory board under Singapore’s Ministry of Culture, Community & Youth (MCCY), reviewed the newly published 2024 survey conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) and OnePeople.sg, which revealed that trust in racial and religious groups had increased significantly from the previous year, and felt optimistic about the journey ahead. Through the case discussion, students will be able to understand the Singapore model of multiculturalism, learn about the different models of multiculturalism, and compare and contrast governmental approaches to multiculturalism. 

The case delves into how the Singapore National Heritage Board (NHB) came to put up two elements – hawker culture and the kebaya – for inscription on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity. The nomination process for hawker culture involved inputs from researchers and was driven by NHB, as well as another government agency and a merchant body. Through the process, the communal dining experience at hawker centres was highlighted as a defining hallmark of the element. As for the kebaya, the nomination process was a joint effort involving the governments of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Activities like documentation and research, as well as promotion and transmission, came to the fore when the respective governments compiled the joint nomination document. As a result of the joint exercise, it was found that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” when each country brought forth its respective expertise. Even as both nomination processes had culminated in a successful inscription of the nominated elements, the NHB leadership team pondered: What had been the main difficulties and benefits of collaborating with regional counterparts? And should it be more proactive in identifying more heritage elements for inscription?

This case is intended for use in multidisciplinary courses involving elements of heritage and tourism studies, international relations, and cultural geography. Students who have successfully examined the case should be able to analyse the possible consequences if the inscribed elements were to be commoditised; evaluate the correlation between a country’s soft power and its ability to secure ICH inscriptions; and investigate how inscribed ICH elements facilitate place-making for a country.

This paper studies integrating the crowd workforce into next-day home delivery services. In this setting, both crowd drivers and contract drivers collaborate in making deliveries. Crowd drivers have limited capacity and can choose not to deliver if the presented tasks do not align with their preferences. The central question addressed is: How can the platform minimize the total task fulfilment cost, which includes payouts to crowd drivers and additional payouts to contract drivers for delivering the unselected tasks by customizing task displays to crowd drivers? To tackle this problem, we formulate it as a finite-horizon Stochastic Decision Problem, capturing crowd drivers’ utility-driven task preferences, with the option of not choosing a task based on the displayed options. An inherent challenge is approximating the non-constant marginal cost of serving orders not chosen by crowd drivers, which are then assigned to contract drivers. We address this by leveraging a common approximation technique, dividing the service region into zones. Furthermore, we devise a stochastic look-ahead strategy that tackles the curse of dimensionality issues arising in dynamic task display execution and a non-linear (problem specifically concave) boundary condition associated with the cost of hiring contract drivers. In experiments inspired by Singapore’s geography, we demonstrate that choice-based crowd shipping can reduce next-day delivery fulfilment costs by up to 16.9%. The observed cost savings are closely tied to the task display policies and the task choice behaviours of drivers.

Many cities experience urban overheating from climate change and the urban heat island phenomenon. Previous studies demonstrate that parks are a potential nature-based solution to mitigate urban overheating through the ‘Park Cool Island’ (PCI) effect. PCI intensity can be measured through field measurements (FM) or remote sensing. This FM study used a network of meteorological sensors within a park and in its surrounding urban area to ascertain its PCI intensity in Singapore from January to December 2022. Consistently cooler air temperatures were found throughout a 24-h period in the park area, with mean daytime (nighttime) PCI intensity measured ~ 2.21 °C (~ 1.69 °C). A modified version of PCI (PCImodified) was developed to highlight the radiative cooling differences between the urban and park areas. PCImodified leverages on the network of sensors to preserve the spatial granularity of data, allowing for the interpolation of point data across the study area. By employing Geographical Information Science concepts, the model visualises the diurnal changes in PCImodified intensities with respect to tree height, tree density, and building height; significant cooling is positively (negatively) correlated with tree height and density (building height). This study demonstrates a comprehensive analysis of PCI and cooling intensities of parks using FM in understudied tropical urban environments.
 

Cities have long been expressions of political ideology in China and elsewhere. During China’s rapid urbanization over the past few decades, “new areas” became popular strategies to promote urban growth, following the success of Shenzhen, widely regarded as China’s first special economic zone. Today under Xi, Xiong’an New Area has become the latest “new area of national significance.” But unlike previous new areas in China, Xiong’an has become wedded to a distinct vision of the urban in Xi Jinping’s China, one in which the excesses of reform-era urbanization are controlled through new forms of affordable housing and finance, new ecological planning approaches and digitized government services. Through an analysis of the rhetoric and ideas used to promote the city, gleaned from archival analysis and financial data, this article shows how Xiong’an has become a showcase for a new ideology of the urban under Xi Jinping.

The idea of right-sizing, or the process of adjusting the size of a city to maximise the efficient use of resources, has traditionally been used in strategic management and the resizing of shrinking cities to promote efficient urban development. Concurrently, in contemporary discourse, the sizing of smart cities has emerged as a critical topic, as size impacts the implementation of smart initiatives. Smaller cities offer the advantage of serving as cost- effective testing grounds for innovative solutions; however, they also need to be sizeable enough to attract private investments and build a robust smart city ecosystem. In this paper we demonstrate how in the context of smart city planning and governance in Southeast Asia, different actors are adopting new spatial strategies to address the sizing question. The idea of right-sizing requires rethinking in the context of smart city because it captures how effectively cities are scaled to balance technological innovations with socio-economic and administrative demands. Through three case studies from Southeast Asia, we analyse three distinct smart city right-sizing strategies: dispersal, zoning, and merging. By examining these, the paper highlights the complexities and nuances in determining the right size of a smart city across discrete contexts.

This article considers the ways in which the material infrastructures of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) intersect with other infrastructural formations, and how the resulting overlaps can trigger processes of what I call “infrastructural splintering”. These processes cause infrastructure to be experienced in differentiating ways, creating divisive politics where there might once have been unity. Embracing these politics as an analytical starting point undermines the techno-material stability of the BRI, and reveals its more-than-material affects. I illustrate these ideas by developing a case study of the effects of the China-backed Colombo Port City project on Catholic fishing communities that are dependent upon the aquatic commons for survival. The construction of the Port City has brought about significant aquatic pollution and ecosystem destruction, and public erasure by Colombo’s political elites. Complicating matters is the dominance of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka’s littoral spaces, which has become divided by a universalist politico-ecological consciousness imposed by the Vatican, a corruptible local hierarchy, and environmental activists that engage communities by working through the Church’s sacred infrastructures. By working through these processes of infrastructural splintering, I consider how the BRI has caused Sri Lanka’s littoral spaces to face increasingly fractious futures.