Keywords
Urban Governance;
Differentiated Citizenship;
Spatial Justice;
Global South
How to Cite
Abstract
This article analyses the public housing system in Singapore as an urban governance tool structured around meritocracy. Drawing on a theoretical framework that combines spatial justice, differentiated citizenship, and critical urban theory, it examines how public housing functions not only as a redistributive policy but also as a mechanism of moral and social control. The study approaches the concept of meritocracy not only as a principle for allocating resources based on individual merit but also as a technology of governance that produces social hierarchies and citizen subjectivities through disciplinary and moral evaluation mechanisms. The analysis includes a review of the symbolic, spatial, and normative dimensions of the Singaporean housing model. The comparison with Chile and Colombia reveals shared logics of differentiation and stigmatization across diverse Global South contexts. This comparison is justified by the presence of housing models that, despite operating with different institutional structures, reproduce forms of conditional inclusion and social control based on individual self-sufficiency. The article concludes that public housing, far from being a guaranteed right, operates as a technology of citizen classification that reproduces both symbolic and material hierarchies in urban space. In this sense, housing becomes a central instrument for understanding how states urbanize difference and govern belonging in the cities of the Global South.
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