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Abstract
Quality-of-life research leans toward measuring placed-based attributes of a locale while less attention has been given to understanding what people mean by quality of life. This paper reiterates that quality-of-life research is intrinsically about juxtaposing life conditions and life evaluation, thereby unveiling critical issues immanent in a society (Castells, 1983). This paper draws on interviews conducted in public housing neighbourhoods in Singapore to examine the colloquial meanings of quality of life and the normative connotations that people attach to it. It unveils the efforts to reconcile fast and slow and discusses the different temporalities underpinning life domains and how spatial planning could engage with the issue of time to improve quality of life. The Singapore case is insightful to contemplate the challenges of reconciling the increasing needs of going slower amid an accelerated pace of life, which is a contradictory yet pervasive characteristic of life in contemporary capitalist societies.

AbstractThis paper examines an urban regeneration project in the Changsin-Sungin Area (CSA), Seoul, by drawing on the current debates on post-political urban policy. Adjacent to Dongdaemun Fashion Market (DFM), the K-fashion hub, the CSA is known for the clustered sewing factories embedded in residential housing. In 2014, the CSA was selected as a test-bed for the implementation of the new policy called the Urban Regeneration Programme (URP). This new scheme is publicly funded seeking continuity and civic participation in urban regeneration. The CSA-URP contrasts with previous schemes in Korea, in which private developers, with state support, were the main drivers of massive demolition and reconstruction. In order to promote participation, the city government has created an intermediary for public–private partnership and adopted the public contest for the distribution of resources. Significantly, this new model has shifted its focus of regeneration from housing to public space, from entitlement to participation, and from proprietorship to cultural capital. This has also raised new queries about whether the new model effectively promotes residents' bottom-up participation or manages consensual atmosphere. By contemplating Seoul's latest urban regeneration experience, this paper examines whether the CSA-URP offers corrective forces to capital-led and top-down urbanization or it depoliticizes the political. Thereby, the paper aims to contribute to the critical understanding of post-political urbanism.