Singapore’s skyline is a unique tapestry of towering skyscrapers, lush natural spaces and historical architecture, reflecting the city’s innovation and cultural richness. As a small island city-state with limited land, Singapore has embraced vertical growth, efficient public transport systems and integrated urban greenery to fulfil its "City in a Garden" vision.
Yet the link between Singapore’s built environment and social outcomes for its people remains underexplored, according to Senior Scientists Neil Hoai Nguyen Huynh and Rakhi Manohar Mepparambath from A*STAR’s Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC).
“The built environment—which includes buildings, streets, open spaces and infrastructure—sets the stage for our daily lives by shaping our health, quality of life and social well-being,” Huynh explained. “In urban design, key outcomes are social capital—the social interactions in a physical environment which hold communities together—and physical activity, which improves health.”
While many studies have examined how built environments affect either social capital or physical activity, few have focused on how all three arenas interact to impact health issues and social challenges. To dig deeper, Huynh, Mepparambath and colleagues surveyed land use patterns, amenity availability and community perspectives in three distinctly different Singaporean neighbourhoods.
“We chose Bukit Batok, with its extensive green spaces, to represent a younger town with modern services; Sembawang for its modern amenities and industrial areas; and Toa Payoh for its traditional residential features and well-connected public transport,” said Huynh and Mepparambath.
The team gleaned insights from 1,000 respondents in the three neighbourhoods through surveys on the perceived built environment, community connections, physical activity and socio-demographic factors. Along with public data from the Singapore Land Authority on built environment features, the results were analysed using a statistical technique called structural equation modelling (SEM).
After testing various models, the researchers found that people’s perceptions of the built environment’s quality and inclusivity had a significant influence on social capital, which in turn mediated the frequency and type of physical activity.
“For example, while community initiatives often bring strangers together to exercise in hopes that they’ll form meaningful relationships after, our findings suggest it’s more effective to first help people get to know each other, which then leads to them initiating regular joint exercise sessions,” said Huynh.
These findings offer crucial insights for urban planners, suggesting that focusing on the quality and inclusivity of urban spaces can enhance social cohesion and encourage active lifestyles. For instance, neighbourhood designs with visibly family-friendly, pedestrian-friendly and well-maintained public spaces can bring about healthier and more connected communities.
The team is working with other A*STAR research institutes and government agencies to analyse how access to green and blue spaces impacts health, using comprehensive data from the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) cohort study. “We hope our research will help urban planners and policymakers make informed decisions that encourage healthier and more sustainable lifestyles,” said Huynh.
The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC).
