The book compares different approaches to urban development in Singapore and Seoul over the past decades, by focusing on community participation in the transformation of neighbourhoods and its impact on the built environment and communal life. Singapore and Seoul are known for their rapid economic growth and urbanisation under a strong control of developmental state in the past. However, these cities are at a critical crossroads of societal transformation, where participatory and community-based urban development is gaining importance. This new approach can be seen as a result of a changing relationship between the state and civil society, where an emerging partnership between both aims to overcome the limitations of earlier urban development. The book draws attention to the possibilities and challenges that these cities face while moving towards a more inclusive and socially sustainable post-developmental urbanisation. By applying a comparative perspective to understand the evolving urban paradigms in Singapore and Seoul, this unique and timely book offers insights for scholars, professionals and students interested in contemporary Asian urbanisation and its future trajectories.
Dr Cho Im Sik is an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, at the National University of Singapore where she serves as the leader for urban studies research and teaching and as principal investigator for many research projects funded by the key government agencies in Singapore, related to urban space design and participatory planning for sustainable high-density environment. She has served as a reviewer for the National Research Foundation of Singapore (2014-2017) and South Korea (2015). Her recent publications as lead author include Towards an Integrated Urban Space Framework for Emerging Urban Conditions in a High-density Context in the Journal of Urban Design (2015); Re-framing Urban Space: Urban Design for Emerging Hybrid and High-Density Conditions (Routledge, 2016); and Changing approaches to community participation for social sustainability: Neighbourhood planning in Singapore and Seoul in Caprotti and Yu (eds.), Sustainable Cities in Asia (Routledge, forthcoming).
Dr Blaž Križnik is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Urban Studies at the Hanyang University in Seoul. He has graduated from architecture and holds PhD in sociology of everyday life from the University of Ljubljana. He has worked previously as a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona and Seoul Development Institute and was a visiting professor at the University of Seoul and Kwangwoon University. He is a co-founder and senior researcher at the Institute for Spatial Policies in Ljubljana. His research work is focused on comparative urban studies, sociology of urban social movements and Korean studies. His last book Local responses to global challenges: Cultural context of urban change in Barcelona and Seoul explores the importance of local culture in urban development.
