The university and East Asian cities: the variegated origins of urban universities in colonial Seoul and Singapore

This essay explores and compares the development of colonial urban universities in Seoul and Singapore for the purpose of examining the multifaceted and scaled socio-political relationships in colonial cities. The colonial universities were a contested space where different interests crossed. The pattern of these intersections was different because Seoul and Singapore experienced different colonial powers – Japan and Britain, respectively. In this regard, this essay focuses on how different colonial experiences affected universities as well as urban environments in Seoul and Singapore. The findings show that the university campus development trends of colonial universities in Seoul and Singapore are important to understanding the urbanization processes of both cities. The varied colonial interests, global and local, shaped universities and their surrounding urban environments in different ways. Understanding these differences helps us understand the development trajectory of East Asian urbanization.