Publications

Urban Life

The digital subversion of urban space: Power, performance and grime

Orlando WOODS

In this article, we survey a growing body of literature within geography and other intersecting fields that trains attention on what inclusive smart cities are, or what they could be. In doing so, we build on debates around smart citizens, smart public participation, and grassroots and bottom-up smart cities that are concerned with making smart cities more inclusive. The growing critical scholarship on such dis- courses, however, alerts us to the knowledge politics that are involved in, and the urban inequalities that are deeply rooted within, the urban. Technological interventions con- tribute to these politics and inequalities in various ways. Accordingly, we discuss limitations of the current discourses around inclusive smart cities and suggest a need for a nuanced definition of ‘inclusiveness’. We also discuss the necessity to further engage with critical data studies in order to ‘know’ what we are critiquing.

WOODS, Orlando.(2020). The digital subversion of urban space: Power, performance and grime. Social and Cultural Geography, 21(3), 293-313.

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Urban Life

The ideological alignment of smart urbanism in Singapore: Critical reflections on a political paradox

Lily KONG and Orlando WOODS

Over the past decade, much has been written about the potential of smart urbanism to bring about various and lasting forms of betterment. The embedding of digital technologies within urban infrastructures has been well documented, and the efficiencies of smart models of urban governance and management have been lauded. More recently, however, the discourse has been labelled ‘hegemonic’, and accused of developing a view of smart technology that is blinkered by its failure to critique its socio-political effects. By focusing on the case of Singapore’s ‘Smart Nation’ initiative, this paper embraces the paradoxes at the heart of smart urbanism and, in doing so, interrogates the tension between ideology and praxis, efficiency and control, access and choice, and smart governance and smart citizenship. It also demonstrates how such tensions are (re)produced through ‘fourthspace’ – the digitally enabled spaces of urbanism that are co-created, and that contribute to an expansion and diffusion of social and political responsibility. It ends by suggesting how such spaces have the potential to radically transform not just the urban environment, but also the role of government and citizens in designing urban futures.

KONG, Lily, & WOODS, Orlando.(2018). The ideological alignment of smart urbanism in Singapore: Critical reflections on a political paradox. Urban Studies, 55(4), 679-701.

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Urban Growth

The Impact of the Cost of Car Ownership on House Price Gradient in Singapore

Naqun HUANG, Li JING, and Amanda ROSS

This paper examines the extent to which a change in the cost of car ownership affects the house price gradient with respect to distance from the central business district (CBD). Theory suggests that if the cost of car ownership increases, then people will shift towards other modes of transportation, thus reducing house prices farther away from the CBD. However, the cost of car ownership is likely to be endogenous and correlated with various unobserved factors that also contribute to a change in the house price gradient. To obtain causal effects, we exploit a unique feature of Singapore’s car registration process. All cars in Singapore must have a Certificate of Entitlement (COE), but the number available is restricted based on the traffic concerns of the government and are allocated through a competitive bidding process. We use the number of COEs available each quarter as an instrument for the price of a COE, as the quota is likely to be correlated with the price of the COE but not the price of housing at various distances from the city center. We find that when the price of a COE increases, the price of housing closer to the city center increases, suggesting that increases in the price of a car cause individuals to increase their willingness to pay to locate closer to the CBD.

HUANG, Naqun; LI, Jing; and ROSS, Amanda. The impact of the cost of car ownership on house price gradient in Singapore. (2018). Regional Science and Urban Economics. 68, 160-171.

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Urban Infrastructure

The impact of weather extremes on urban resilience to hydro-climate hazards: A Singapore case study

Winston T. L. CHOW

Changing frequencies and intensities of extreme weather events directly affect settlement vulnerability; when combined with rapid urbanization, these factors also influence urban resilience to climate-related hazards. This article documents how urban resilience can generally be maximized, before examining how it is impacted by extreme hydro-climatic events (i.e. droughts and floods), with a specific case examination for Singapore. In particular, analysis of Singapore’s climate from 1950 to 2015 indicates (1) a warmer environment, and (2) recent periods of more intense surface dryness. Lastly, this article suggests how specific climate information regarding extreme event attribution can aid municipal stakeholders involved in urban resilience policy.

CHOW, Winston T. L..(2017). The impact of weather extremes on urban resilience to hydro-climate hazards: A Singapore case study. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 34(4), 510-524.

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Urban Infrastructure

A multimethod approach towards assessing urban flood patterns and its associated vulnerabilities in Singapore

Winston T. L. CHOW, Brendan D. CHEONG, and Beatrice H. HO

We investigated flooding patterns in the urbanised city-state of Singapore through a multimethod approach combining station precipitation data with archival newspaper and governmental records; changes in flash floods frequencies or reported impacts of floods towards Singapore society were documented. We subsequently discussed potential flooding impacts in the context of urban vulnerability, based on future urbanisation and forecasted precipitation projections for Singapore. We find that, despite effective flood management, (i) significant increases in reported flash flood frequency occurred in contemporary (post-2000) relative to preceding (1984–1999) periods, (ii) these flash floods coincide with more localised, “patchy” storm events, (iii) storms in recent years are also more intense and frequent, and (iv) floods result in low human casualties but have high economic costs via insurance damage claims. We assess that Singapore presently has low vulnerability to floods vis-a-vis other regional cities largely due to ` holistic flood management via consistent and successful infrastructural development, widespread flood monitoring, and effective advisory platforms. We conclude, however, that future vulnerabilities may increase from stresses arising from physical exposure to climate change and from demographic sensitivity via rapid population growth. Anticipating these changes is potentially useful in maintaining the high resilience of Singapore towards this hydrometeorological hazard.

CHOW, Winston T. L., CHEONG, Brendan D., & HO, Beatrice H..(2016). A multimethod approach towards assessing urban flood patterns and its associated vulnerabilities in Singapore. Advances in Meteorology, 2016, 1-11.

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Urban Infrastructure

Assessment of measured and perceived microclimates within a tropical urban forest

Winston T. L. CHOW, Siti Nur ‘Assyakirin Binte Ali AKBAR, Su Li HENG, and Matthias ROTH

Urban greenery is a favoured approach applied towards reducing urban warmth and climate discomfort, but ascertaining its measured and perceived effectiveness in tropical climates is relatively understudied. To this end, we investigated microclimate differences within an urban park (the Singapore Botanic Gardens) to assess if variations in plot-scale land cover affect both objective (measured) and subjective (surveyed) microclimate data. Over two monsoonal seasons, we obtained data from four distinct sites—a tropical rainforest stand, a palm tree valley, a water-body feature, and the park visitors’ centre. Measured climate data (e.g. air temperature, vapour pressure, wind velocity and globe temperatures) were used to derive mean radiant temperature Tmrt and three thermal comfort indices (e.g. temperaturehumidity index THI, physiological equivalent temperature PET, and wet-bulb globe temperature WBGT). Concurrent to these measurements, we also surveyed park users (n = 1573) for perceived microclimate sensations and preferences in thermal, humidity, wind and sun exposure, as well as their overall assessment of climate comfort/discomfort. The results indicate significant differences in both measured and perceived microclimates over different sites and seasons, with (i) selected heat stress thresholds based on thermal comfort indices exceeded at several sites, and (ii) visitors perceived generally hot, humid and low-wind conditions throughout. Variations in respondent acclimatisation to tropical climates are observed between correlations of WBGT and some sensation votes, with apparently stronger correlations with more acclimated respondents. While humidity was voted as the most uncomfortable climate variable across all sites, a large majority of respondents felt comfortable climate conditions throughout. Present results confirm that vegetation canopy characteristics affecting wind and sun exposure appear to be important factors in outdoor thermal comfort. Lastly, we suggest that future tropical outdoor thermal comfort studies consider the critical aspects of site humidity and wind to discern comfort/discomfort levels.

CHOW, Winston T. L., AKBAR, Siti Nur ‘Assyakirin Binte Ali, HENG, Su Li, & ROTH, Matthias.(2016). Assessment of measured and perceived microclimates within a tropical urban forest. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 16, 62-75.

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Urban Growth

The Impact of Agglomeration Economies on Hospital Input Prices

Andrew FRIEDSON and Jing LI

This paper examines the extent to which agglomeration of the hospital service industry enhances the productivity of producing health care. Specifically, we use a large set of private insurance claims from the FAIR Health database to show that an increasing spatial concentration of hospital services results in a decreased cost of obtaining intermediate medical services. We explicitly test whether the reduced cost at concentrated locations arises from the ability to share intermediate service providers. The identification relies on state variation in medical lab technician licensure requirements, which influence the cost of intermediate services only through the cost of running a lab. Our findings suggest that agglomeration of the hospital service industry attracts specialized medical labs, which in turn help to reduce the cost of producing laboratory tests.

FRIEDSON, Andrew and LI, Jing. The Impact of Agglomeration Economies on Hospital Input Prices. (2015). Health Economics Review. 5, (38), 38-52.

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Urban Growth

Cointegration of Matched Home Purchase and Rental Price Indexes: Evidence from Singapore

Badi H. BALTAGI and JING LI

This paper exploits the homogeneity feature of the Singapore private residential condominium market and constructs matched home purchase price and rental price series using the repeated sales method. These matched series allow us to conduct time series analysis to examine the long-term present value relationship in the housing market. Three key findings are obtained. First, we fail to establish a cointegrating relationship between the home purchase price and rental price based on nationally estimated indexes. Second, area-specific indexes demonstrate strong cross-correlations, invalidating the use of first generation panel unit root tests that ignore these cross-correlations. Third, Pesaran's CIPS test indicates that the unit root hypothesis is rejected for the first difference of both indexes. We also do not reject the hypothesis that area-specific home purchases and rental price indexes are cointegrated with a cointegrating vector (1, - 1).

BALTAGI, Badi H. and JING LI. Cointegration of matched home purchases and rental price indexes: Evidence from Singapore. (2015). Regional Science and Urban Economics. 55, 80-88.

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Urban Growth

The Influence of State Policy and Proximity to Medical Services on Health Outcomes

Jing LI

This paper examines two factors that help to explain geographic variation in health outcomes. The first factor concerns proximity to medical services. The second factor is state-specific health care policy that may impede access to nearby medical services. Four key findings are obtained. First, the effect of local doctors on reducing mortality rates of various diseases in a county attenuates with distance. Second, at approximately the same distance, in-state doctors contribute more to lowering mortality rates in the primary county than do out-of-state doctors. Third, the lesser impact of nearby out-of-state doctors is further reduced when the primary state adopts more stringent policies that restrict entry of out-of-state physicians. Fourth, the impact of nearby doctors is found to be stronger in more urbanized areas. This is consistent with agglomeration economies being effective in contributing, at least in part, to the productivity of treating patients.

LI, Jing. The Influence of State Policy and Proximity to Medical Services on Health Outcomes. (2014). Journal of Urban Economics. 80, 97-109.

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Urban Growth

Further Evidence on the Spatio-Temporal Model of House Prices in the United States

Badi H. BALTAGI and JING LI

Holly, Pesaran, and Yamagata (Journal of Econometrics 2010; 158: 160–173) use a panel of 49 states over the period 1975–2003 to show that state-level real housing prices are driven by economic fundamentals, such as real per capita disposable income, as well as by common shocks, such as changes in interest rates, oil prices and technological change. They apply the common correlated effects estimator of Pesaran (Econometrica 2006; 74(4): 967–101), which takes into account spatial interactions that reflect both geographical proximity and unobserved common factors. This paper replicates their results using a panel of 381 metropolitan statistical areas observed over the period 1975–2011. Our replication shows that their results are fairly robust to the more geographically refined cross-section units, and to the updated period of study.

Baltagi, B.H. and Li, J. (2014), FURTHER EVIDENCE ON THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL MODEL OF HOUSE PRICES IN THE UNITED STATES. J. Appl. Econ., 29: 515-522. https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.2372

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