Social Gap and Urban Planning

#$%^&* SG

Hi,

If you notice lately alot of new stuff seem coming.

Refreshed Sentosa.

Marina Downtown. (A kind of superblock called Marina Bay City if Im not wrong).

Integrated Resorts.

And so with all these new developments into the future, what do you think the prospect of North / West Singapore will be like?

Currently, I feel there is already a divide. I think SG can be divided into 2 major areas: South-East and North-West.

The South-East is the center of Singapore, the heart of Singapore. It is the main districts. Meanwhile the North-West is the supporting districts. We can see alot of the elite classes living and working in South-East.

If you take a look, where is the parliament house? Istana? If you look at the map. Also where are the most expensive real estate? Where are the districts 9,10,11? And where is the CBD?

Im a litle worried with this development because I worry this kind of urban planning will widen the social gap especially as Singapore move forward and become a more complex society.

The forthcoming major superblocks seem to be built on and leverage on the already existing areas. I feel this is not spreading the goodies and even out to the outer areas.

Perhaps a social-harmony policy can be implemented where new developments take place nearer to middle and lower-middle class districts. This can rejuvenate the area, a kind of urban renewal.

I mean, Singapore has already implemented a policy to create social harmony through HDB and its ethnic quota system. That is an example of how physical layouts and urban planning can be used as tool to achieve social harmony. Perhaps going into the next stage, a better mix should be considered, this time not only ethnic mix but also social and urban mix. Dont let too much concentration into one section and create a division in society.

robertteh SG

When the leaders first announced the economic restructuring projects and Asset Enhancements and CPF Retirement schemes in the 1970s, it was actually also full of excitements with people wringling their hands with hope that tomorrow will be better than today.

Have the leaders achieved a good record of fulfilling their promises schemes and plans since the 1970s.

Have people enhanced their HDB flats or increased their wages or employment opportunities?

Of course the scholars and elites are all successful and government is also successful in accumulating taxes and keeping the taxes to be surpluses from which to pay themselves million-dollar salaries and rewards as happened in NKF.

But by rewarding all the leaders and elites all the glamourised sinecure GLC CEO posts have they solved our citizens' high-cost problem or the "20 major government policy errors" as posted to the Feedback Unit.

It looks like they will start comparing our glamourised GLC CEOs as major corporations chiefs and talents equal to Bill Gate and all the world best talents.

foxwalk SG

I live in the southwest.. I don't feel marginalised or anything.. but one should take a walk in those districts 9, 10, 11. I give tuition to one of the kids there, bl00dy hell... the houses there just dwarf you. Their walls surrounding their houses are easily higher than my HDB ceilings

Atobe SG

Is it any surprise that the elite status of selected areas of Singapore will remain impermeable to any HDB developments encroaching anywhere near to it ?

In all the forty over years of Singapore History, the following areas remain pristinely exclusive : - Orchard-Patterson, River Valley-Killiney, Tanglin-Grange, Pandan-Holland Road, Bukit Timah-Dunearn (including Upper BT) that also include the wider bordering areas of Chestnut Parks, Sixth Avenue, Watten Avenue, and the wide area sanwiched by Holland Road and Upper Bukit Timah Road.

The closest that public housing ever got to Orchard Road was the previously built HUDC Executive Massoinettes - (opposite the Newton Hawker Centre Car Park, adjacent to the Anglo-Chinese Primary School, and behind the ENV Building) .

After being completed, this HUDC development was never sold to the public, and was leased to a Private Investor to be operated as a Service Apartment; and subsequently, the entire project was demolished and sold to Far East Development for its own redevelopment program.

Nothing was spoken in Parliament on the wasted public funds, nor any quesiton asked as to the reasons for not selling the HUDC units to Singaporeans.

Could we speculate with some accuracy that the decision "not to sell" was to prevent those few Singaporeans from getting any windfall profits in a resale for these highly prized units - if any Singaporeans were lucky enough to purchase these units at the fringe area of Orchard Road ?

While other areas have been purposefully planned with private development of condominiums being built next to HDB estates - all with the intention of the Upper Middle Income providing leadership to community of HDB heartlanders - these other exclusive areas have remained.

If the Middle Income Class - living in 99 year lease properties - is to provide leadership, what about the Upper Income Class living in Freehold Properties ?

Can those who live in exclusive Upper Income Class areas truly understand the social, cultural and political environment of the other Income Groups that live in cramped up conditions ?

With so much restrictions imposed on the owners of the HDB units, is there any social mobility until one strikes the ToTo or Big Sweep jackpot; or take the scholarship path to highly rewarding occupation ?