Pigs in the City: Revisiting how humans can co-exist with wild boars
Pigs in the City: Revisiting how humans can co-exist with wild boars
By SMU City Perspectives team
Published 21 March, 2026
“Creating a ‘City in Nature’– a goal rooted in recent advances in ecology, engineering, and planning research –is undoubtedly a valuable and cutting-edge objective. Figuring out the complications and contradictions that such a complex environment entails would be an opportunity to demonstrate a new sort of urban leadership.“
Sayd Randle
Assistant Professor of Urban Studies, Singapore Management University
In brief
- Urban development and ecological sustainability are hard to balance. This can be seen in Singapore’s struggles with human-wildlife interactions.
- Context shapes effective strategies for the balanced coexistence between people and wildlife. Cities like Houston, Barcelona, and Hong Kong all show different approaches to managing urban wildlife.
- It’s important to find balanced solutions that support both human communities and the natural environment.
Methodology & References
RANDLE, Sayd. Pigs and the city. (2024). Asian Management Insights (Singapore Management University). 11, (3), 74-80.Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/ami/267
RANDLE, Sayd. Wild hogs in the water: Contested infrastructural ecologies of reservoir storage in Texas. (2025). Antipode 57(4): 1216-1235Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/159
RANDLE, Sayd. A ‘City in Nature’ and its porcine interlopers: Confronting the edges of urban ecological order. (2025) Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/457