Common Space in Chinatown

Common space is an area in which people are forced to mix, through commonalities found amongst them. It is not necessarily physical, though we shall be looking at how Chinatown allows for the development of common spaces, especially as a platform for Chinese to interact.

Following Sir Stamford Raffles’ initial plan for Chinatown to be an area of stay and interaction amongst Chinese traders and businessmen, Chinatown today still preserves his intention of keeping it rooted to the Chinese culture in which the town was developed and established for in the first place. This can be shown physically, through the physical structures that are preserved. The government has kept the whole notion of giving a physical common space that Chinese can still enter and relate to, even after renovations, such as the preserving of verandahs and old shophouses. This allows for Chinese to enter the physical common space and interact with one another, providing a platform for culture to be maintained and not lost. This is however, greatly limited, as even though the overall structure of old shophouses and verandahs are kept the same, the shops that occupy them are very much different from the initial intentions of staying rooted to Chinese culture. This will be explained later in greater detail.