Parkville Singapore

Our PM suggests that making Singapore into a more inclusive society can start with ideas for 'new' (actually, remaking existing) parks. Some suggestions included building giant slides and adventure playgrounds. Seriously? Since when did parks have anything to do with creating an inclusive society?

More to the point, this is NOT the kind of park a densely populated and built-up city like Singapore needs. This is a point our PM has consistently missed. Reference his call for suggestions to add 'buzz' to the returned KTM land. When we go to a park, we are looking to escape the stress of city living, we are looking for peace, quiet and tranquility. We are not looking for things to DO and definitely are not there to look at other people. For that we have playgrounds embedded within housing estates and places like Resorts World Sentosa.

We do not want to be dodging kids on push scooters, teens on skateboards or assorted cyclists and joggers. Unfortunately, NParks is being operated like a transport company where the passenger load factor trumps everything else. So, NParks considers a well used crowded park a 'successful' one, nevermind that its success defined in those terms is a failure from a park users point of view.

Consider the recent opening of the Bishan - Kallang River Park by the PM. What we have is a scattering of trees and mostly open grass fields. The only nature (of the non-human) variety you are likely to see will probably be the usual mynahs and pigeons. Was there even an ecological study done to determine the mix of trees and other greenery to ensure a sustainable habitat for local wildlife? In its present state, unless rabbits, goats and sheep are the 'wildlife' NParks is targetting, the park will basically be a desert devoid of any nature worthy of the term.

I'm sure the PM means well and his suggestions are well intentioned. But he has not spent enough time thinking about the issue and as a result, his suggestions are off the mark if not completely inappropriate. It's a little like giving opera tickets to a homeless person living at the void deck as a caring gesture and then wondering why it isn't appreciated.

Building an inclusive society is an admirable goal. But trashing our few remaining green spaces by converting them into pseudo theme parks isn't the way to go about doing it. Any you know why? Because the lack of pseudo theme parks is not the reason why society at present is 'not inclusive'!