City and Territory, and the productive relationships between these two urban categories, will be the focus of this research project. Throughout history, cities have functioned as centers of political and economic power, from which the agricultural and resource-rich hinterlands were controlled. Starting with the industrial revolution, new technologies, transportation modes and the opening of trade have introduced a remarkable complexity to the relationship between cities and territories. We now know that the reliance of cities on their surrounding territories basic resources is diminishing. Instead, they seem emancipated from the constraints of geography, operating in a global web of dependencies. These are the conditions where the access to resources and labour, and even the distances between the sites of production and consumption, are being reconsidered in their economic, political and ethical dimensions. The research is thus based on a hypothesis that an operative understanding of the city-territory relationship, the ability to conceptualize it in qualitative terms, and to influence it by means of planning and design strategies, is central in addressing urban sustainability.
Singapore’s hinterlands in the trinational region Singapore-Johor-Riau and their functional links with the city, will serve as the paradigmatic research case. At first glance, the island city-state of Singapore is the ‘city without territory.’ Certainly, it is the city whose productive territories lie beyond national borders, with economic incorporation of proximate areas in Malaysia and Indonesia remaining both a necessity and a profitable opportunity. From the Singapore region, the research will branch out to other locations that have the potential to illuminate the dynamics of contemporary territories.