Singapore: Colonial Singapore

Raffles had very clear ideas about the kind of town he wanted to establish: shipping on the river, Chinatown on the right bank (he called it the "Chinese campong," using the Malay word for village), a government area on the left bank--and, beyond it, what he called the "European town." Still farther out, there would be an "Arab campong." All were to lie on neatly gridded streets. The streets survive, as streets around the world tend to. The Chinese, however, were so numerous that they soon pushed the Europeans out of European Town to more northerly places like Tanglin--today a wealthy residential area. Indians soon arrived, mostly from South India--what was then Madras. Within the last 20 years, and after a period of fairly merciless "urban renewal," Singapore has begun rehabilitating the remnants of its colonial past, whether European, Chinese, Arab, or Indian. "Heritage preservation" has become a very big and profitable business--a good sign of the country's general prosperity. Even the old port, once crammed with lighters, is now thoroughly proper--so clean and lifeless that it gives ammunition to Singapore's critics.