Village in the City: The Redevelopment Challenge

Urban renewal is undertaken to improve both the residents’ livelihood and the area’s physical image . The role of local politics has become inevitable in ensuring that both of these goals are met in any urban renewal project. However, occasionally it happened that both objectives were not realized due to interference from external factors such as new wealth from land speculation. This article examines the issues of urban renewal in two Malay urban settlements, Kampung Bharu in Malaysia and Geylang Serai in Singapore, comparing and contrasting their development trajectories.