If you’ve lived in Singapore long enough, you’ll notice things don’t stay the same for long.
Maybe the field you used to walk past on your daily commute is now a construction site, or the school you spent your teenage years at has been replaced by 40-storey Build-To-Order flats.
Singapore is a city that is constantly evolving. In just 50 years, it has transformed from a humble village into a bustling metropolis – a transformation admired by cities around the world. But while infrastructure developments are signs of a city’s growth, these often come with trade-offs – one of which is the constant redevelopment of familiar places.
There’s always tension between the need to redevelop and the desire to hold on to spaces where we’ve built memories and formed our identities.
In Singapore, every plot of land is carefully planned out in the master plan, a blueprint reviewed every five years that sets guidelines on how each plot of land can be used and developed over the next 10 to 15 years.
The latest edition of the master plan, gazetted on Dec 1, 2025, gives us a glimpse into how our city might change in the next couple of years – including changes to commercial spaces and schools. Let’s have a look.
Since November 2019, at least 10 former school sites have been rezoned. This trend could be attributed to two main reasons: a declining younger population and the need to consolidate resources, says Dr Chua Yang Liang, who is the head of research and consultancy for South-east Asia at JLL.
“In the 1980s, many new schools were built to accommodate the baby boomers of the Dragon Year, and now I think we are seeing the tail end of it.”
“What we’re seeing now is the consolidating of some affiliated schools,” says Dr Chua, whose expertise lies in real estate advisory.
The site occupied by Singapore Sports School in Woodlands was zoned a reserve site under the 2025 masterplan, after previously being zoned for education use.
This rezoning follows an announcement in March that the Singapore Sports School will move to Kallang, and be located alongside the Singapore Sport Institute and the National Youth Sports Institute.
Similarly, Anglo-Chinese School (Junior) in Winstedt Road will move over to the Barker Road campus, tentatively in 2039. Pupils in ACS (Primary) in Barker Road will consolidate with ACS (Junior), and will be collectively known as ACS (Junior) pupils. The ACS (Junior) premises in Winstedt Road will be returned to the Education Ministry.
The plot of land where ACS (Junior) now sits has been split into residential and reserved sites, meaning they are held in reserve for future needs.
This trend of consolidating resources is not new. One example is St Andrew's Village, a 13.5ha school complex built in 2006 on the banks of the Kallang River that is home to St Andrew's Junior College, St Andrew's Junior School and St Andrew's Secondary School.
This consolidation allows schools to optimise resources. Dr Chua says: “One of the key concerns is that school fields are not used after certain hours, so consolidating the schools allows these spaces, as well as others, to be used almost throughout the entire day, serving a larger population base.”
Some schools have been merged with other schools, like Ping Yi Secondary School, which was merged with Bedok Green Secondary School.
... others have been relocated, like Angsana Primary School in Tampines Street 22.
A school is where collective memories are formed. People spend their formative years there and build a deep connection to the place, says Dr Felicity Chan, fellow and deputy programme director of the Master in Urban Science, Policy and Planning at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities.
These are spaces that anchor our sense of time. When familiar places from our growing-up years disappear, some of those memories often fade with them, she adds.
“I always wonder to myself whether it's actually possible that schools can be turned into community centres, because they’re built to be community spaces from the beginning,” says Dr Chan, who used to practise as an urban planner.
Although schools may now occupy a smaller plot of land, they are getting taller.
Three junior colleges – Temasek JC, Anderson Serangoon JC and Jurong Pioneer JC – will move into new campuses in 2028 that will occupy smaller land sites but will have buildings that go up to 12 storeys.
Even though the schools are on smaller plots of land, taller structures are being built, with larger total floor areas.
As Singapore’s population grows, it’s natural for the city to become denser, says Dr Chua. If you look at the older masterplans, the plot ratios – numbers that guide developers on how high they can build – were probably lower, he adds.
“It’s natural across all types of spaces, from industrial to commercial to residential, and even schools, because we need to optimise per square foot of use.”
Another trend is the redevelopment of commercial buildings – like malls – into mixed-use developments, such as a residential project with retail on the first floor.
One example is JCube mall, which was closed down in 2023 to make way for a 40-storey residential development.
This trend towards more mixed-use developments isn’t new or unique to Singapore, says Dr Chua. In the early days of urban planning, land uses were strictly separated into single zones. As cities grew, planners prioritised hygiene and public health, reinforcing the idea that where people work and where they live should be kept apart, he explains.
But over time, this created central business districts that emptied out after office hours. The push for mixed-use developments emerged as a way to bring life and activity back into city centres, adds Dr Chua.
What’s unique to Singapore, though, is the rise of integrated developments.
These are developments that combine community clubs, retail spaces and residences within the same compound.
Several neighbourhoods in Singapore are seeing an uplift and revitalisation of their estates with integrated developments such as Chong Pang City, which will be redeveloped into Chill @ Chong Pang.
Tanglin Halt, one of Singapore’s oldest estates, is also being redeveloped into a new housing estate that includes an integrated development.
“Integrating social functions into the retail mall is an evolution of the town centre concept, where you once had your library, cinema and other amenities clustered together,” says Dr Chua.
Retail already plays a major role in daily life in Singapore – it’s where we catch the train, pick up groceries and run errands, so it makes sense to integrate other complementary elements such as childcare centres and community clubs within the same space, he adds.
This not only brings greater convenience but also optimises land use by drawing people together into a shared, vibrant hub.
We’re also seeing a lot more hotels being built.
In the last six years, at least 15 plots were rezoned from commercial use to hotel use, ranging from larger commercial buildings to smaller shophouses in the latest masterplan. As an open economy, Singapore attracts a steady stream of visitors, which demands more need for supporting amenities such as hotels, says Dr Chua.
A shophouse that once housed a traditional Chinese health tonic store was converted into Hotel NuVe Elements in Clarke Quay.
Golden Wall Centre in Bugis was redeveloped into Hotel Mi Rochor in 2023.
Here’s the truth: Singapore is only going to keep evolving in the years to come.
Enter your postal code to see what are some possible changes to your neighbourhood in the years ahead.
Places such as schools and malls are where we spend much of our time in Singapore, and they’ve become part of our daily routines. These are spaces where we’ve created many memories, and in turn, they shape who we are as individuals. So when our built environment – the spaces that make up our everyday lives – changes, it can affect our sense of belonging in a city, a concept known as “urban belonging”.
To better understand this, Dr Chan has been conducting a study since 2023 to explore the relationship between the residents’ sense of belonging and neighbourhoods undergoing urban redevelopment. In the study, titled Mapping Urban Belonging in Places of Flux, she interviewed 165 participants across five neighbourhoods to find out how people form connections to places in their neighbourhoods. Each participant was asked how they experienced urban change and to sketch their special places of belonging.
The top three “special places of belonging” identified were food and market areas, nature spots such as park connectors and residential areas – namely, people’s homes.
Dr Chan hopes her research can help planners rethink how Singapore’s built environment evolves. “We cannot stop changing in Singapore,” she says. “But in that process of change, is there something we can hold on to?”
For Ms Jessica Heng, who lives in Marine Parade, her special place of belonging is East Coast Park. She loves the diversity of people who get to enjoy the space, from domestic and foreign workers to residents and families.
“At different times of the day, if you go, there’ll be a karaoke machine, or guitar. And as you travel through the space, you get an ever-changing sense of how different communities are able to enjoy it,” says the 28-year-old arts practitioner.
“Everyone is just moving from point A to B in the city. But at the beach, there's a certain slowness to it and people get to enjoy just being.”
In 2024, Singapore started conducting site investigations to build a “Long Island” – three tracts of about 800ha of reclaimed land for new homes and other amenities, as well as a new reservoir.
It is Singapore’s response to the threat of rising sea levels and inland flooding in the East Coast area. Land in the area is largely lower than 5m above the mean sea level, the extent that sea levels are projected to rise to by the end of this century if extreme high tides coincide with storm surges.
Some concepts for Long Island involve creating 20km of waterfront parks alongside the existing East Coast Park.
“Every time I go to the beach, I feel this sense of grief, knowing that I might not be able to see this in 10 years’ time,” Ms Heng says, adding that she has been submitting her feedback on the URA website.
When my friends’ kids think of East Coast Park as a lagoon, how do I then explain to them that no, we had a coastline, and it was a sea?
Dr Chua says there’s always a trade-off between conservation and development. But over the last 10 to 20 years, there has been a shift towards greater dialogue with citizens, rather than purely top-down decisions. There has also been a growing emphasis on placemaking efforts to keep communities engaged, he adds.
Before the 2025 masterplan was gazetted, a draft was unveiled on June 25 and exhibited at the URA Centre. It also toured 14 other locations around the island. Alongside the exhibition were fringe events and activities that the public could participate in.
URA said in a press release that the goal of the tours was to engage the public, as well as to ensure that the changes in the masterplan “reflect Singaporeans’ aspirations while balancing national priorities with community and individual interests”.
The exhibition was visited by almost 250,000 people and was the most visited urban planning exhibition, it added.
Change does not need to equate to erasure, if we can change in a way that’s thoughtful and productive.
“Just as we lose things through redevelopment, we gain new ones. Part of our human experience is our ability to form new attachments and create new memories,” Dr Chan says.
But the challenge is this: Do we expect new connections to form easily, or should we spend more time thinking about how we can change more thoughtfully and transition more smoothly?
There’s room for nostalgia, but also for acknowledging that some changes may not always be for the better, and that’s why we grieve, Dr Chan says. “Recognising that grief is a natural part of change is important.”