Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

This paper aims to examine the ways in which the Singaporean government has promoted the “global city” imaging strategy as a means for marketing Singapore. Since the 1990s, Singapore has pursued a place-marketing strategy that aims at imaging itself as a “creative”, “culturally vibrant” and “cosmopolitan” global city by utilizing various cultural, tourist and spatial policy measures. It argues that the Singaporean government has promoted this particular imaging strategy under a broader economic restructuring program, aiming at transforming the Singapore’s economy into a “knowledge-driven” one, under which the attraction of international knowledge workers is seen as crucial for the competitiveness and innovation. This paper also discusses the limitations of this strategy, focusing on growing tensions between the global and the local in the Singaporean society and the ways in which the authoritarian and topdown nature of governance have restricted the genuine development of the “culturally vibrant” environment in Singapore.