Kent E. Calder - Singapore: Smart City, Smart State

SINGAPORE

SMART CITY SMART STATE

KENT E. CALDER

Brookings Institution Press

Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2016

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Calder, Kent E., author.

Title: Singapore : smart city, smart state / Kent E. Calder.

Description: Washington, D.C. : Brookings Institution Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016029970 (print) | LCCN 2016037654 (ebook) | ISBN 9780815729471 (paperback : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9780815729488 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: SingaporePolitics and government1990 | SingaporeSocial policy. | SingaporeEconomic policy. | Urban policySingapore. | City and town lifeSingapore. | Community lifeSingapore. | City-statesCase studies. | GlobalizationCase studies. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / International / Economics. | POLITICAL SCIENCE / Globalization. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Development / Economic Development.

Classification: LCC DS610.7 .C35 2016 (print) | LCC DS610.7 (ebook) | DDC 959.5705dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016029970

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Typeset in Adobe Garamond and Myriad Pro

Composition by Cynthia Stock

To my students across the years,
who have so often become my teachers,
as the years roll by.

Contents

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Preface

One size never fits allneither in tailoring nor in the real world. An increasingly global world, however, has an inevitable thirst for paradigmsconcrete cases that can yield insight into the origins of the wealth, stability, and well-being of nations. Few are timeless, and virtually all such paradigms are profoundly related to their times.

The early twenty-first century, it is increasingly clear, is the era of the Digital Revolution. The deepening power of computing and telecommunications, coupled with their deepening integration, is radically reconfiguring economics, politics, and administration around the globe. In this radically new and volatile environment, international business and political centers must urgently study both best practice and emerging challenges from one another.

I went to Singapore first as a boy of eight, on vacation with my family from Burma, where my father was helping to establish a School of Business Administration at the University of Rangoon. I still remember the vivid orange of the flame trees along the road from Changi Airport, as we first arrived, while Singapore still slept under colonial rule. That natural beauty has continued to impress me over the twenty-odd trips I have made back to the Lion City over the intervening half century and more.

Apart from the continuity of the flame trees, however, Singapore for me has over the years been a fascinating whirlpool of continual change. In this book, my first effort at conceptualizing developments in Singapore since The Eastasia Edge , published in 1982, I have focused particularly on the city-states adaptability. I have been curious as to how and why that once somnolent Southeast Asian nation has morphed into a paradigm of pragmatic, technologically sensitive policy adaptation of relevance to both developing and advanced industrial nations throughout the world.

A diverse and remarkable group, to whom I owe a profound debt of gratitude, has accompanied me on various stages of this intellectual journey. First, of course, are a loyal and unfailingly helpful group of Singaporean students, who have consistently been among the most able students with whom I have worked, at all of the three schools where I have taught. Khoo Boon Hui, a member of one of my first public policy seminars at Harvard, who later served with distinction as Singapore commissioner of police and president of Interpol, offered generous advice and correction on this manuscript, for which I am grateful. Serene Hung, my very last Princeton student, and the very first Reischauer Policy Research Fellow at SAIS, before leaving for the Harvard Government Department began the research that culminated in this book. Eric Teo, Alpana Roy, Kaijiun Wong, and Jason Ho, among others, are additional brilliant Singaporean students who have become my teachers and contributed to the work presented here.