City Of Sound has often brought to my notice, the art and culture of cities and what makes a city, a city. And in this context, I wonder if we would know Singapore as Singapore if 90% of the population were Indians or Malay?

This thought occured to me while walking down deserted Shenton Way (one of the arteries of Singapore), and I thought “see! even when the road is deserted, you cant say it is not singapore!”. Then another thought came to my mind, what if I see a whole lot of caucasians and african americans simply walking through the streets like they do in New York? Would Singapore remain Singapore then?

Singapore has been defined by the culture of immigration. The whole city was built by immigrants and therefore, diversity is not new. But, if we see a gradual decline of diversity, then Singapore would no longer remain the Singapore we know now.

In my opinion, the best example would be London. What did the “good old days” of London have? They had the same buildings and ruins, but they had only caucasians and an evolving culture. The culture didnt change till the immigrants came in. London is no longer what it was in her past. She had evolved and become somebody new. This, sparks nostalgia and longing for “good old days” resulting in backlashes against immigrants for “changing the face of london”.

I realised this. People make the cities. Cities change and evolve not because the architecture changes, but fundementally becuase there are different people there. Bangalore is another example of such a transformed city. Bangalore is a cultural melting pot of Indians and you can surely find all races and creeds of Indians there. As a result, you see the Bangalore crowd distinct from people from other parts of India. Surely, the “older generation” cant identify with this “cultural revolution” and long for the “good old days”.