Whose city is it anyway?
Many of us take this city for granted, we travel from point to point, in and out — the issue for us it seem is not about if we can but if we want to. For us, the public transport is convenient, we have the money to gain access to most places and we fit in easily (i.e. no funny stares from others).
Not my mother or my aunts it seems. They stick to direct bus routes, enduring longer journeys because the drill of transfers and changing is just too confusing. They feel out of place at cosmopolitan shopping malls. The times are bad so they rather avoid paying so much to travel to the city centre nor pay $5 for a plate of char kway tiao. They get lost in the city centre that so many of us travel with ease and efficiency.
While you and I easily straddle and traverse Singapore’s distinct divided cityscape of the heartland HDB and the cosmopolitian city centre daily, let us not forget that there are those around us who are lost in their very own city just because it was not built for them.
I agree, sometimes you can easily perceive multiple Singapores.
CelluloidReality
December 20, 2008 at 11:22 am
It will be the same when the new generation “colonize” the city and we become the old generation that comes after.
james
December 20, 2008 at 11:47 am
I think what might be missing is really the opportunity or “contestations” among the different communities to make our landscape more egalitarian. Sure, there will be a majority that determines the city, but look closer and you might just find pockets that defy the norm.
As for my mum and aunts, like many of us, they choose to walk away from it all instead of trying to engage it, and so we give up the fight for our land.
j u s t i n . z
December 21, 2008 at 5:00 pm