Building Urban Resilience: Singapore’s Policy Response to Covid-19

This is one of the first few books to discuss the Covid-19 crisis as an urban phenomenon and illustrates this through the case of Singapore and its pandemic response efforts.

The book describes the implications and impacts of the pandemic on Singapore’s urban landscape, economy and society. It also assesses the urban interventions that have emerged in response to the pandemic. It examines the spatial implications and challenges of delineating safe distancing in various public and commercial spaces and evaluates the effectiveness of these interventions. The book also explains how Singapore’s smart city capabilities help with its Covid-19 response.

This book will be of great interest to urban planners and policymakers across the world, particularly those who are hoping to learn from the success and limitations of Singapore’s Covid-19 responses.

Debbie Loo is an architect by training with a background in professional practice, urban studies research, and teaching. She is currently an Architectural Researcher at SAA Architects. She has worked on numerous built projects in Singapore, most notably Pinnacle @ Duxton, an award-winning public residential. She has held research roles in urban studies think-tanks such as the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities and SUTD-MIT International Design Centre. She is a board member of the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Heritage and Identity Partnership. She has also created installations as a form of urban commentary which were exhibited at the National University of Singapore Museum and the Singapore National Library.

Her research interests include ageing urbanism, urban policy and heritage.

J.J. Woo is a public policy consultant and an adjunct lecturer at the Nanyang Centre for Public Administration, Nanyang Technological University. His professional appointments have included Assistant Professor and Programme Leader at the Education University of Hong Kong, Assistant Professor and Community Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University, Rajawali Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore University of Technology and Design.

Dr Woo received his PhD from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore and holds an MSc in International Political Economy from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. He is the author of several books, including Singapore as an International Financial Centre: History, Policy and Politics (Palgrave) and The Evolution of the Asian Developmental State: Hong Kong and Singapore (Routledge). His research has also been published in leading international peer-reviewed journals, with his most recent article ＂Policy capacity and Singapore’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic＂ published in Policy & Society.