[URBANTH-L]ANN: Ph.D. Opportunity, Global Capitalism in Urban Singapore

[Angela Jancius]

[x-posted from euroseas at yahoogroups.com]

From: WONG Tai Chee (HSSE) <tcwong at nie.edu.sg>
Subject: Looking for a PhD candidate

Looking for a Candidate to Apply for a PhD Scholarship

I am an urban geographer and am looking for a potential candidate to apply
to do a PhD under my supervision. He (she) should have a good knowledge of
human geography, in particular urban geography or urban studies or urban
planning etc. Those interested should consult the NIE/Nanyang Technological
University Website as follows:

http://www.nie.edu.sg

The potential candidate should be in a position to link closely his/her
future thesis topic with my research project shown in the attachment.
However, he/she does not need to restrict the topic to Singapore. Please
email me if interested. I will appreciate it if you could forward this
message to more people.


Best wishes
Dr Wong Tai-Chee
Associate Professor
HSSE, National Institute of Education
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

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Attachment: Research Proposal

The Future of Central Business Districts: A Case Study of Singapore

The end of the 20th century saw the world being reconfigured by an
intensifying global capitalism characterized by global competition and world
city hierarchical organization. Along with this development, digital
technology has tended to set space freer and more flexible in future
business activities and operations.  Hence, the boundaries of conventional
central business districts (CBD) are being defied, and its role undergoing
tremendous change. Singapore, as a modern and mega-Asian city, is moving at
high speed towards the pursuit for top-level global city status.

To accomplish the rising role of specialized services, Singapore has a prime
site reserved for future expansion of its CBD  Marina South (340 ha). The
city is in search of greater involvement in integrating itself with the
advanced economies, using this reserved site. The objective of the research
is to seek answers to the following research questions.

Research questions

1.      Will the widespread use of ICTs multiply the need for spatial
concentration of specialized services (agglomeration economies)? That is, is
Marina South an anachronism and no longer required for the future expansion
of the CBD?

2.      What kind of urban form will Singapore take in future? In response
to this, a subset of two other questions are called for:

a.       Will Singapore exert spill-over effect to its neighbouring areas
including Johor (Malaysia) and Riau Islands (Indonesia), taking into account
the national border as a barrier?

b.      If the spill-over effect is to be effective, then under what
circumstances?

3.      At the macro-level, what is the role of the state in the pursuit of
the global city status? And, why is achieving the global city status crucial
to the city-state of Singapore as a model of success story?