COLONIAL CITIES IN ASIA PACIFIC

Colonial cities in Asia where conformed during the 19th century and they were generally characterized for the intrusion of a new and estrange culture in relation to the preexisting culture for an extensive period[i]. This new culture developed colonial cities in order to satisfy the requirement of a link between the maintaining systems and the colonial government[ii]. The initial over construction of colonial cities in Asia has left social and special marks in the urban development of contemporary cities, as way to manage and plan the city. These characteristics and guidelines will be demonstrated through two examples of colonial cities, Singapore and Sri Lanka. These two cities can be compared do to its colonization place in the time and also due to the origin of the external government imposed.[iii]This paper will summarize some important decisions and success witch modified the pre-colonial city and finally they will be characterized in common aspects.[iv] Finally, these characteristics will be evaluated in the contemporary city.
The city of Singapore, located in a strategic geographical zone of the Malaya peninsula, symbolize diverse situations representative of a colonial city. Firstly, it was formed as a strategic commercial point, and in 1969 it consolidate its position as an important transactions points for the East-West trade, being considered as a “bridgehead” city[v], all the primary products generated in Malaysia where distributed through the port of Singapore. This is related with the economic structure of the city as another constant aspect imported from the European industrialization development[vi].
Secondly, the city of Singapore where dominated and reshaped by the Europeans concepts and population, this formed a city represented by a predominant Chinese population in a planned colonial city by Europeans. In consequence, the city match in a dual image between the imposing buildings of “colonial munificence”[vii] and European replications[viii], and the native culture buildings and urban structure represented as an object of tourism or symbol of the past culture where is representative the separated residential clusters in opposition of the traditional market and mixed used neighbors related with the Chinese culture
A third important aspect of the colonial city of Singapore was its rapid urban growth due to the immigration of rural habitants to the city provoking a high demand of housing for the laboring classes, developing central housing areas where the accessibility to the working space was maximized and the cost of transportations where low[ix] and the wealthiest Europeans families create a middle class suburbs far away of the congested city. [x]
Following the previous aspects, the city of Sri Lanka can be assimilated to Singapore colonial process in many aspects even though it diverse colonial origins due to the equivalent influence colonial government in the urban planning was the British one, due to its commercial vision of the conquest which required spatial and social transformations in the city.[xi]This city was converted into a crown colony in the 1815 where the British destroy the social order replacing the higher dominations class in “low-caste men”[xii] under the rules of the British crown.
Due to the imposition of the foreign culture [xiii] [xiv] transformed the cities in heterogeneous city where the native culture and urban representation has being minimized by the one which is dominant, assuming the Europeans desires and own characteristics lacking of integration and social geographical comprehension.
First the spatial segregation, as many other Asian cities they can be recognize of their characteristics as “dual cities”[xv], where they involve the historical and original town and the new and modern cities brought for the conquerors. It is characterized by different social classes in the city, as a dominant and power elite, the indigenous population, the mixed cultured-race population.[xvi] Although there is not only the racial or the culture the main factor that exist spatial segregation, also it happens due to the different “produced roles” in groups and it is mainly related with cultural and racial aspects.[xvii]This characteristic is still common to see it in the main cities of the Asian countries where the spatial segregation is a common aspect in the developed city. The spatial territories are segregated inside the cities and they are different in image, population, and culture.
Second the cultural pluralism. The colonial cities are evidently differentiated due to the mixed in spatial morphology and architectural elements related with the imposition of a new culture over a preexisting one. It combine diversity of cultures including, British immigrants, native people relation characterized by a relation of dependence and domination. The colonial city has evidence of their traditional cultural past through their architecture[xviii] and urban structure and the new developed city with the modernization of the city.
The third aspect that we can find in both cases is the relation between dominance-dependence, the domination and the power, where the colonizers have the entire domination of the “social, economic and political power”[xix]. The colonial cities are immersed in a productive force related with the capitalist world economy assumed until today. The colonial process where characterized on the concentration and over exploit of the colonial lands and the demanding of natural resources, this aspect demand to this cities to be a worked force city deriving in diverse slums, squatters, and tenements, that can be seen until today in the capitals cities as an industrial capitalism.[xx]
Despite of the fact that the contemporary cities have being changed in size and population, the main characteristics of a colonial city are still entrenched in the growing dynamic urban design, but the situation is transforming due to relation between the social and economic characteristics in the same process in that the colonial cities where related on the “global structure process”[xxi]. Due to that, the contemporary cities will content new ways of reach the social and economic goals and it is trying to give a answer to the spatial segregation, the dominance-dependence and the cultural pluralism with a contemporary vision since the changes of paradigms. The new aspects of the contemporary cities are related with a broader external cultural impact, and they have to answer as a world trade center in a globalized world, avoiding the special segregation, and the dominance-dependence as it was thought imposed by force and rethink it a given global services city, and also the cultural pluralism will be more intensive due to the mixed of cultures and languages that they might attempt.

[i] Munasinghe H. Transformation of Colonial Urban Space in Sri Lanka, with special reference to The Port City of Galle. Helsinki. Helsinki University of Tecnology.1992. p15
[ii] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995.
[iii] Author Note: It can be easily comprehend the similarities between cities in a same context. Rakodi C. inheriting a settler-colonial city: change or continuity?.Chichester [England]; New York: J. Wiley, c1995.
[iv] Author Note: The main Physical/spatial characteristics will be analyzed based in the suggested characteristics given by King and the conceptual Spatial/characteristics will be analyzed through the interpretation of Yeoh. King A. Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World Economy, Cultural and Spatial Foundations of the World Urban System. London: John Urry Univesity of Lancaster, 1990, p19. Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995, p.35
[v] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995, p.35
[vi] Rakodi C. Inheriting a settler-colonial city : change or continuity? . Chichester [England] ; New York : J. Wiley, c1995.page 4
[vii] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995, p.3
[viii] Terence G. McGee, The Changing Cities, in R.D. Hill (ed.) South –East Asia: A systematic Geography, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1979, p.191 in Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995, p.4
[ix] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995, p.37
[x] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995, p.45-46
[xi] Munasinghe H. Transformation of Colonial Urban Space in Sri Lanka, with special reference to The Port City of Galle. Helsinki. Helsinki University of Tecnology.1992. p16
[xii] Munasinghe H. Transformation of Colonial Urban Space in Sri Lanka, with special reference to The Port City of Galle. Helsinki. Helsinki University of Tecnology.1992. p25
[xiii] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995.
[xiv] King. Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World Economy, Cultural and Spatial Foundations of the World Urban System.London: John Urry Univesity of Lancaster, 1990, p16
[xv] Rakodi C. Inheriting a settler-colonial city : change or continuity? . Chichester [England] ; New York : J. Wiley, c1995.page 4
[xvi] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995.
[xvii] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995.
[xviii] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995, p.5
[xix] Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995.
[xx] Author Note: In this category the functional aspect can be integrated, as a characteristic of the dominance-dependence relation and not as a single category as King suggest in Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World Economy, Cultural and Spatial Foundations of the World Urban System. London: John Urry University of Lancaster, 1990, p18
[xxi] Simon D. Colonials Cities, Postcolonial Africa and the World Economy: A Reinterpretation, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 13 (1989): 47-67) In Brenda S.A.Yeoh, Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995, p.7