Prison Island Singapore

Not just because as some say we are a police state, but because we are destroying our living environment. As long time residents will know just by looking out of their windows, their view has become progressively restricted. Where once you could see the horizon, now all you can see is a row of apartment blocks. How different is this from an inmate in a prison where all you can see is either the next cell block or the prison walls?

The rising demand for pubic housing has seen recent HDB apartments built higher (think 40 to 50 story flats) and closer together. This picture of flats packed like dominoes is an example. Just what kind of view can someone staying in the middle blocks expect to see? Even those in the periphery will have their view blocked when the land next to them gets developed. What you see here is the construction of highrise slums.

A recent segment on the news showing Singaporeans viewing new HDB showflats drew comments on the smallness of the units. This was followed a few days later in the papers where the HDB CEO commented that while flats have become smaller, the space per occupant has actually increased and that quality of living need not be affected. If that is the case, then prison inmates must be living in the lap of luxury in their cells! This is what I call adding insult to injury. Not only are you forced to eat shit (buy smaller flats), but you are told that it is actually good for you.

It is ironic that in a country that pioneered or at least adopted the open concept zoo to encourage animals to breed, the orangutan Ah Meng likely lived in more spacious quarters than most Singaporeans today. Where even battery chickens have minimum space requirements specified by law, our housing minister, Mr Khaw Boon Wan prefers to let market forces decide the same for humans. And the market's profit motivated forces will soon dictate units that will shrink from shoebox to matchbox and finally to coffinbox size. All very good if you are a shoe, a match or otherwise dead.

Let us be honest here. Any living environment in which the occupants have to move sideways when two of them pass each other is too cramped. The size of the living and bedrooms in new flats are so small that by the time the minimal furniture is installed, the occupants have to tiptoe sideways around them. How could this possibly be described as high quality of life? These design defects cannot be rectified in some future upgrading exercise. Adding on an extra room does not increase the size of the original small rooms. The only way to rectify this would be to demolish and rebuild bigger. Does the Minister and HDB see their future selves (not the incumbents of course, they would have long since retired) having the will and fortitude to do this in the future? Who's going to bear the costs? Better to build it right the first time around than to rebuild.

I do not think that building bigger units for HDB flats will add significantly to the cost. The real reason for not doing so is because HDB has pegged its pricing to the price of private property. Unfortunately, private property developers look at HDB prices to set their prices. This circular price referencing has only one inevitable outcome: Prices spiraling upwards. With higher prices, it is not
possible for HDB to price their flats 'affordably' if the unit area of the flat is too big. And so HDB has resorted to the standard supermarket trick of maintaining prices while reducing the size of the flats to give the illusion of affordability.

It has become a political imperative to quickly resolve the housing issue. This has translated to building more rather than better. All this does at best is to relieve the short term pent up demand for a longer term need. But by designing them to be barely liveable, all it is doing is storing up future resentment. Mr Khaw can do us (and the future housing minister) all a favour by freezing current building plans pending a design review where inputs from people who will be paying for and ACTUALLY staying in those buildings are taken into consideration.

Don't hold your breath for rational action though. The powers that be who are in charge currently have a very short term perspective (basically the next general election in 2016). Better to reap short term populist (despite all protestations to the contrary) gains. In the longer term, it's not their problem. They will have already retired by then. YOU however will still be paying off your 30 year mortgage for a house in which you have to move sideways like a crab, assuming you haven't lost your job to a foreigner in the meantime.