CREATIVE SINGAPORE: IMAGE AND REALITY Can-Seng OOI

manicured, but the prosperous island-state knows how to get down and dirty, too ” (Kurlantzick, 2007). Much earlier in 1999, Time magazine declared on its cover story, “Singapore lightens up: Nanny state? Hardly. Once notorious for tight government control, the city-state is getting competitive, creative, even funky ” (McCarthy and Ellis, 1999). The image of a creative environment often conjures up spaces of experimentation and innovation, with elements of quirkiness, untidiness and unpredictability. In such an environment, people are free to make choices and try new things. There is diversity, excitement and spunkiness. People push ideas and redefine boundaries. These are traits of a tolerant democratic place. Unlike a totalitarian regime, a democratic society allows people the room to experiment, to disagree with the status quo and to express their thoughts freely. To Richard Florida (2003), he found San Francisco to be an attractive place for the cultivation of creativity and innovation because of the city's open-minded and tolerant heterogeneous population; creative people will flock to places that allow them the spaces to think, express and create. A lively civil society and creativity goes hand in hand. Other researcher