Housing and Development in Singapore

Abstract

requiring a simultaneous solution to the problems of shelter, social equity, building efficiency, builders' and occupiers' financial needs, and urban and regional net works with complex relationships between housing and other physical, social and economic services. Thus, to understand the subject as the policy-makers are now adays required to understand it, the study of housing has to extend to the most general problems of economics, finance, social policy, urban policy, and urban administration. If we establish the foregoing as our basic conceptualization of housing, noting its eclectic and conglomerate nature, the circumstances become further complicated when we consider housing in the transformation process from less developed country (LDC) status to newly industrializing country (NIC) status. The further complexity is in the political economy of the growth and development purpose where housing is at once a potentially lead sector in the change process, and a necessity implied by rapid urbanization. These opening statements give outline and purpose to what has to be interpreted and explained in the housing system and the housing policies of Singapore and similar NIC metropolitan areas. Concepts and scope are not the only source of intellectual interest and curiosity. Growth processes carry some important emotional relationships bound up with nation-building, senses of accomplishment, pride, and the intensities which are called forth in dealing with such social urgencies as slums, unemploy ment, and the political vulnerability of those who fail to meet the challenges. This increases the politicization of housing, and it is this characteristic which is the major feature for the interpretation of housing policies in Singapore. Housing performance has been a key element in what has been a phenomenal success in economic development and social change. In Singapore, housing is a symbol of pride, of nationhood, of the political achievement of the People's Action Party (PAP), and of government benevolence for the public interest. In housing, this benevolence is expressed through the public housing activities of the Housing and Development Board (HDB). The HDB is set in a context where the PAP, which has held government since 1959, has monopolized political power and restricted some freedoms.1 This obviously influences the implicit understandings and the relationships between the government, the HDB, housing intellectuals, and