Government policies, development guidelines and incentives influence the built environment form and use of space. Besides, the state's strategies, which would be influenced by geographical conditions and globalization may change the meaning of space and the contexts for its sustainable development. As a step of study mentioned above, this paper aims to show how Singapore government leads and involves the public to the conservation for its historic shophouse districts, which have been initiated since middle of 1980s. This paper explains the urban conservation system of Singapore in 3 levels: 1) land use policies and urban planning system, 2) the problems of conservation and the solutions or implementations by government, 3) the structure of current conservation guidelines.
