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Squatters into citizens : the 1961 Bukit Ho Swee fire and the making of modern Singapore / Loh Kah Seng.

Van Pelt Library DS610.9.B84 L64 2013
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Loh, Kah Seng, author.
Series:
Southeast Asia publications series
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Bukit Ho Swee Fire, Singapore, 1961.
Public housing--Singapore.
Public housing.
Housing policy--Singapore.
Housing policy.
Singapore.
Physical Description:
xxvii, 315 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.
Place of Publication:
Honolulu : Asian Studies Association of Australia in association with University of Hawaiʻi Press, [2013]
Contents:
Chapter 1 Fire: A Catalyst for Modern Singapore 1
Crisis and Planning in the Metropole 5
An Alternative Modernity on the Margin 10
The Singapore Exception in Southeast Asia 13
Fire as Catalyst 17
Overview of Remaining Chapters 24
Chapter 2 Hopeful Migrants in the Urban Kampongs 26
Between Staying and Moving 29
Exodus from "Pigeon Cages" and Direct Arrivals 34
The Character of a Mobile Community 44
Chapter 3 A "Black Area" 47
First Act of Fire, 1934 48
Post-war: "Finding a Road" 50
Living with Pigs and the Dead 59
Gangsters and Kampong Children 65
Chapter 4 "A Roar from the Oppressed People" 73
Representation and Surveillance 74
Prosecution and Demolition 79
Clearance and Resettlement 81
Planning and Zoning 84
Politics and Mobilisation 87
Bukit Ho Swee and Hong Lim Pa Sat 94
Chapter 5 Fires and Experiments with Emergency Housing 98
Geography of Risk, Culture of Fire 99
Voluntary Firefighting Squads 104
Million-Dollar Inferno at Kampong Bugis 106
"14-Day Wonder" at Geylang Lorong 3 108
Degenerating into Slums: Emergency Housing at Geylang Lorong 25 110
Fire and State Inaction at Kampong Tiong Bahru 112
Emergency Housing for Sale at Kampong Koo Chye 114
"The Opportunity to Clean up the Area Must Not Be Lost": Kampong Tiong Bahru, 1959 118
Chapter 6 The Inferno 127
174-A Kampong Tiong Bahru, About 2.50 p.m. 127
Beo Lane, from 3.30p.m. 132
Or Kio Tau, from Roughly 4.30 p.m. 140
Delta Estate, About 5.30 p.m. 147
Arc of Destruction 148
Chapter 7 State of Emergency 154
Fire Site under Guard 154
A Maelstrom of Activity at the Relief Centre 157
Operation Shift 168
The Great Singapore Fire Debate 172
The Anger and Rumours 175
Chapter 8 Nine Months 182
War on Familiar Ogres and Unauthorised Housing 182
Managers and Architects to Break Eggs and Make Omelettes 186
"A God-sent Opportunity" to Build Bukit Ho Swee Estate 189
The End of the Emergency Housing Experiment 198
The Planned New City 202
Chapter 9 Bukit Ho Swee Estate 212
Renewing the Estate 212
Becoming Good and Loyal Citizens 220
Pain and Bitterness: Work and Resignation to Poverty 224
The Estate beyond the Law 230
Gangs and Socially Detached Youths 235
Chapter 10 Memory, Myth and Identity 243
Like a Rising Phoenix: The Official Mythology 244
Romancing the Kampong 252
"Wild Talk" and Undying Rumours 256
Conclusion Fire, Emergency and High Modernism 262
Cultures of Modernity Past and Present 270.
Notes:
Published in Singapore by NUS Press.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-302) and index.
ISBN:
9780824839468
0824839463
OCLC:
847246347

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