Singapore's successful public housing programme is a source of political legitimacy for the ruling People's Action Party. Beng-Huat Chua accounts for the success of public housing in Singapore and draws out lessons for other nations. Housing in Singapore, he explains in this incisive analysis, is seen neither as a consumer good (as in the US) nor as a social right (as in the social democracies of Europe). The author goes on to look at the ways in which Singapore's planners have dealt with the problems of creating communities in a modern urban environment. He concludes that the success of the public housing programme has done much for Singapore.

Preface, Acknowledgements, Introduction, 1. Public Housing policies compared: US, ex-socialist nations and Singapore, 2. From city to nation: planning Singapore, 3. Resettling a Chinese village: a longitudinal study, 4. Modernism and the vernacular: public spaces and social life, 5. Adjusting religious practices to different house forms, 6. A practicable concept of community in high rise housing environment, 7. Public Housing and political legitimacy, 8. Return of the imaginary Kampung as resistance