In the euphoric days that followed the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the American journalist Lincoln Steffens reported, “I have seen the future, and it works.” He was wrong, of course, but whenever I get to Singapore, I wonder if he’d have the same observation. I think I’ve seen the future, but in any case, I’ve seen something—a city that is also a nation—that “works.”
One area is in housing. Part of the popularity—or at least the electability—of the People’s Action Party (the only party that has ruled Singapore since it became independent of Malaysia in the 1960s)—is the emphasis it has given to affordable housing. We visited the Urban Rehabilitation Agency today, and learned that for at least 35 years the city has had a series of master plans that involve land use. The key seems to lie in the Confucian approach that works here: the whole is more important than the individual. Over 85% of Singaporeans live in their own homes (or rather, apartments; home owning is rare and very expensive here), built by the government and leased for 99 years (effectively, “owning”). The government builds in to the plan (we saw the most recent) public transportation and green space, encouraging a quality of life that is unusual around the world. Part of it is an engineered effort to retain quality labor, which the government sees as the key to remaining competitive. One speaker yesterday said that the government has a policy of enforcing ethnic balance in neighborhoods—if you’re Indian, for example, your children learn Tamil (the officially approved Indian language, since many Indians, or about 10% of the population, are from South India) and you can sell your apartment only to another Indian family. There’s a reason the government has a reputation for running a “Nanny” state.
One of the features of the planning that struck me today, and I’ve not noticed it in the past, is the effort to conserve the old. What brought that home to me were the three museums I visited in the morning—all housed in stately old buildings. We had a free morning, so some of us went to the Art Gallery, housed in the former St. Joseph’s School for Boys, built in the early 1900s and abandoned for a newer home in the 1990s. I’d walked by it many times, but had never gone in. Glad I did, though it houses mostly modern art; the building was older than any of the paintings it contained. I left that to wander toward the Philatelic Museum (housed in what I think was a post office), and stopped in to a Peranakan Museum, also located in a former school that’s moved into newer digs. It’s a handsome colonial building accommodating displays relating the mixed families (mostly, I think, Chinese men and Malay women).
The business visits today were to the Urban planning agency for a look at the plans put together by the 48 ministers of the government and approved by the Parliament (yes, it was a British colony), and to one of its projects—you’d never guess it from what I’ve said about Singapore, but one of the government initiatives has been to develop casinos. Asians like to gamble, as I’ve certainly seen in Macau, and the Las Vegas-based Sands has expanded to Macau and Singapore. We visited the 6.4 billion investment that the Singapore government awarded to Sands. The building, on reclaimed land, has three towering hotels, a casino, convention center, and a mall attached to it. It’s not completely functional yet, but is quite stunning. The speaker, an American, is in charge of developing a sustainability plan for the building, which includes some forward-thinking approaches to energy conservation and greenness. Slight energy savings can lead to big savings. I forget what he said the electricity bill was, but I think it was over $6 million a month.
The highlight was really a highlight—we were taken to the skydeck which fits over the three towers like a surfboard. The view of the harbor is stunning; my favorite part was the swimming area, which goes to the edge of the building. I wanted to come back and swim in the morning.
The speaker was pretty complimentary about his work with the Singapore government, which pretty much tells him what it expects from the project. I asked about the differences and similarities with the property in Macau, which he also helped develop. He said that the Macau government (the autonomous region which replaced Portuguese rule opened the gambling to others; it had been the monopoly of Stanley Ho and his 8 wives until that point, but that’s another story) was concerned only about its 40% cut with Sands.
Though we sometimes get a sense that as Singaporeans get richer, their expectations are getting higher, too, and that there is a widening gap in income, I still think Lincoln Steffens might be right had he described Singapore instead of the Soviet Union. There aren’t many places in the world where I’d feel comfortable eating at street vendor food courts, but I certainly am here. Just finished roti for dinner from the court outside the hotel, and had a wonderful helping of Taiwanese spring pancakes with onions for lunch.
Talk to you later.