Jurong West - History

History

In the 1950s, Jurong West was mainly dominated by swamps with low hills covered by shrubs and a thick jungle. It was developed into an industrial estate in the 1960s, supported by low-cost housing. Amenities such as government dispensaries, a private hospital, creches, hawker centres and banks were built in the 1970s during efforts to develop Singapore economically.

Up to the late 1980s, only part of the Jurong West housing estate had been developed, specifically the area between Boon Lay estate and Jurong East. In the early 1990s, a new section of Pioneer Road North was built to connect the present Jurong West Extension to Upper Jurong Road. This signalled the start of the development of Jurong West Extension. Today, the area is also served by the PIE which was extended to Tuas from Corporation Road, also in the early 1990s.

Though a single neighborhood, Jurong West is divided into 3 GRCs and 1 SMC and with 3 Town Councils managing different parts of the neighborhood, namely the Jurong Town Council, West Coast Town Council and Chua Chu Kang Town Council.

Nonetheless, though divided into smaller constituencies, the neighborhood is collectively managed by the PAP.

Located next to the Jurong Industrial Estate, managed by JTC, it is common to find foreign workers hanging out in the neighborhood and influx of foreign workers and foreign expatriates in the region has been a concern among the residents in the area.

Read more about this topic:  Jurong West

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.
    Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)

    Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...
    Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.
    Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)