Gardening Heritage - Sustainable Urban Living in Singapore with Professor Fiona Williamson

Go Back

MIN
Active Citizenship

Gardening Heritage - Sustainable Urban Living in Singapore with Professor Fiona Williamson

By SMU City Perspectives team

Published 13 November, 2025

Why our content is credible

POINT OF VIEW

“Bringing more greenery back to the city… is about promoting sustainability issues, promoting sustainable food, but also… bringing down urban heat, urban pollution, and all the other things that are the bugbears of modern society.”

Fiona Williamson

Professor of Environmental History; Associate Dean (Undergraduate Education); Basket Coordinator for Technology,Science & Society; Urban Fellow (Urban Systems), Singapore Management University

In brief

Far from a nostalgic pastime, gardening once functioned as an emergency infrastructure during crises - from colonial famines to WWII food shortages. Understanding how small-scale cultivation bolstered urban survival offers new lessons as cities face mounting climate risks and disrupted supply chains.
Recognising Singapore’s gardening heritage creates a stronger public mandate for reintegrating food production into future urban planning.
Gardening reconnects city dwellers with cycles of growth, loss, care, and waste. In a hyper-consumerist urban culture, these embodied rhythms help to cultivate a long-lasting environmental mindset.

Singapore’s gardening history was largely a bottom‑up history… It was something that came from the people and was self‑supporting.

What insights come to mind?

Click to respond and see what others think too

SKEPTICAL
Curious
Optimistic
On the Fence

What makes you skeptical?

We read every single story, comment and idea; and consolidate them into insights for our writer community.

What makes you curious?

We read every single story, comment and idea; and consolidate them into insights for our writer community.

What makes you optimistic?

We read every single story, comment and idea; and consolidate them into insights for our writer community.

What makes you on the fence?

We read every single story, comment and idea; and consolidate them into insights for our writer community.

Methodology & References

Inside the mind of

Fiona Clare Williamson serves as Professor of Environmental History; Associate Dean (Undergraduate Education); Basket Coordinator for Technology, Science & Society at Singapore Management University. Her research focuses on Environmental History of Singapore, British Malaya, and Hong Kong, the History of the Climate, Climate Change and Extreme Weather, Climate and Its Impact on Colonial Cities, Especially How the Weather Shaped Culture and Society

Inter-disciplinary Projects with Scientists and Geographers on the Urban Heat Island (UHI) Effect, the Recovery of Historical Observational Weather Data for Climate Modelling, and the History of Nature-induced Disasters in Asia