Making Singapore a Home

LECTURE 09: NATION -BUILDING IN SINGAPORE

Understanding Singapore as a Home

Personal / Individual Level: Shelter as a basic need, care and
protection for individual and family --- into a concept of owning
and being responsible for a home.
More than 80% of Singapores population in HDB public housing.
Historical development from colonial society to budding nation.
Development of public housing as basis for bulk of lecture.

Broader / National Level: The idea of Singapore as an home.

Beyond the individual home The surroundings and the
environment: Amenities, facilities, a green and pleasant Singapore
to live in.
Urban planning and the living environment.

HDB Estates (as at 2010)

Do you want to apply for HDB?

Housing and Nation-building

Housing: a key social policy in Singapores nation-building
efforts
Provides a basic need, e.g. a roof over the head.
Over time, HDB flat and the estate became platforms for
community relations, social integration and social
engineering.

Housing: reflects Singapore's nation-building history

Tangible outcomes: from slums and squatters to
clean, orderly flats, with modern amenities.
Intangible: a sense of ownership, pride and belonging.

Lee Kuan Yews 1984 NDR

And weve brought a sense of
community. And it is these invisible ties,
a sense of belonging, a sense of security
of life in Singapore that makes it a
different place. So when you look up at
your flat in the sky, and you look at the
landscape, the greenery, the trees, the
shrubs, the ponds, the gardens, the
childrens playground, the stadiums, you
know that you are not only the owner
of that flat, but collective owner of all
that surrounds it too
https://youtu.be/3ofjSBGmOcY?t=12m50
s

Housing a Colonial Society

Whos responsible, for whom, and what purpose?

Kampong Kuchan / Kuchai (Lorong 3, Geylang)

Coolie Lines

Urban Living in Colonial Singapore

Housing in the Colonial Period

Raffles Town Plan / the Jackson Plan of 1822:
First instance of Town / Urban Planning: Organised gridlines and neat
demarcations.
Spaces for individual living, community life and recreational activities,
government, commerce, science and education, and greenery, e.g. Botanical and
Experimental Garden, Commercial Square.
Raffles ideals: Singapore was not meant to be merely a location for trade and
commerce. http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/article/raffles-moral-vision-forsingapore

Housing provided by community and society, e.g. employers and kin /

relatives.
Types of housing: Coolie lines (built by employers and companies), shophouses, attap / zinc-roofed huts, cubicles, bunks, spaces etc.
Accommodation and lodging reflected the transient nature of Singapore for
most of the colonial period.

1918 Housing Commission

1918 Housing Commission: poor living conditions in the town
area of Singapore.
Summary of key recommendations: Singapore Housing, The
Straits Times, 22 August 1918.
Authorities taken to task:
60 out of 1800 Government officials;
200 coolies out of 2000 hired by Municipal Engineer;
4,000 out of 9,000 Singapore Harbour Board;
11.3 persons per house;
Overcrowding and poor sanitation, leading to diseases.
Public health concerns more than housing needs led to the
Singapore Improvement Ordinance of 1927.
Public opinion against the colonial administration: The Singapore
Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 23 August 1918

Singapore Improvement Trust

Recommendation of
1918 Housing
Commission.
Singapore Improvement
Trust established in 1927.
Improvements, not
housing.
Primary focus: clearing
the back-lanes, public
health and hygiene.

Tiong Bahru SIT Plan

1947 Social Survey

The "space" category "covers
households whose sole habitation
consisted of places like bunks in
passage ways, the tiered bed lofts
common in Singapore, sleeping
shelves under or over staircases,
sleeping arrangements in fivefoot ways, kitchens and backyards
and other places used for sleeping
without ordinary enclosures or
partitions. Parts of places used for
sleeping which during the daytime was used for other purposes
such as shops, factories, offices,
etc. were also classified as
"spaces".

80% lived in accommodations of

one room or less.
Each of some 14,000 people living
with four other persons in one
room or less.
15% of surveyed households lived
in spaces.

1947 Housing Committee

SIT resumed responsibilities over housing after the
war.
Recommendations :
Build housing outside city area to ease overcrowding.
Long-term planning for housing.
Queenstown: first satellite town started in 1953 by SIT,
completed by HDB.

Other areas: Tiong Bahru, Chinatown, Balestier,

Bugis, Kampong Java (near Newton Circus), Hong
Lim (Upper Pickering Road), Tanglin Halt, Dakota
(Kallang).

SIT Estates

Postwar Developments
Just over 23,000 housing units over 3 decades.
Outpaced by population growth, e.g. increase of 640,000 between 1948
and 1959.
Constitutional developments: decolonisation, change in governments,
and a relatively new and inexperienced civil service.
Clearing slums and squatters, i.e. already settled communities.
Public safety and hazards --- 1951: Kampong Bugis; 1953: Geylang
Lorong 3; 1953: Aljunied Road; 1955: Kampong Tiong Bahru; 1958:
Kampong Choo Chye; 1959: Kampong Tiong Bahru; 1961: Bukit Ho
Swee.
* See Loh Kah Seng, Fires and the Social Politics of Nation-Building in Singapore:
http://www.murdoch.edu.au/Research-capabilities/Asia-Research-Centre/_document/workingpapers/wp149.pdf).

Housing for a Nation

The Implications of Self-Government (from 1959): What did it mean for
those wishing to assume political power?
Political context at that time: first self-governing administration (43 out of
51 seats, with 54.1% of the popular vote).
Legitimacy of PAP government at stake; precursor to full independence.
Social context: High population growth rates, overcrowding and other social
issues.
State Development Report 1961:
4.3% annual population increase, i.e. roughly 60,000 persons added to population
every year.
Plan called for 10,000 to 14,000 units every year.

Initial concerns that demand will push up cost of construction, hence

limited building projects to not more 6,000 units per year.

Tanjong Pagar in 1958

Syed Alwi Road in 1952

National Archives of Singapore (1986)

BARBER (RETIRED) LIVING IN A SHOPHOUSE CUBICLE

Housing & Development Board

Lim Kim San (1916-2006)
Former businessman and
banker
Appointed to HDB: 1 Feb
1960
PAP minister from 1963
(National Development,
Finance, Interior and
Defence, PUB and others)

Housing & Development Board

It was an eye-opener for
me. They were so poor that
there were second-hand
clothing shops, second-hand
shoe shops, and some of the
labourers were so poor they
shared trousers between
them. They shared bunks.
Some will work at night and
others will work during
daytime. So when the one
who works in the daytime is
out, the one who works at
night sleeps in the bunk.

Complications
PAP internal conflicts spilled over into open conflict in 1961.
Lost two by-elections in Hong Lim (to Ong Eng Guan) and in
Anson (David Marshall).
Formation of the Barisan Sosialis.

1961 Bukit Ho Swee fire

Emergency flats for Bukit Ho Swee residents.

Early view of Toa Payoh estate (1967)

Kampong along Sungei Kallang

Toa Payoh in the early 1970s (Source: http://www.teoalida.com/)

Toa Payoh today

HDB's Progress
Year

Target

Completed

1961

7,096

7,320

1962

7,735

12,230

1963

9,690

10,085

1964

12,750

13,028

1965

11,760

10,085

HDBs Progress
End of first year: 1,682 units, with another 6,608 under construction.
End of 1962 (after three full years): built just over 21,000 units.
1963: Began development of second satellite town: Toa Payoh, completed in 1974.
Completing and expanding earlier SIT projects, e.g. Queenstown.
1969: 100,000th unit built. Planned for another 100,000 in the next five years; a
further 125,000 to 150,000 units between 1976 and 1980; 155,500 additional units
by 1985.
1972: backlog cleared; about 78,000 applicants on waitlist.
1976: half of Singapores population housed in HDB flats (about 1.2 million).
1977: record number of units built (30,426) in that year. Supply outpaced demand
for the first time.
1985: over 500,000 units built; more than 80% of Singapores population housed in
HDB flats.

My primary preoccupation was to give every citizen a stake in the country

and its future. I wanted a homeowning society. I had seen the contrast
between the blocks of low-cost rental flats, badly misused and poorly
maintained, and those of house-proud owners, and was convinced that if
every family owned its home, the country would be more stable I had seen
how voters in capital cities always tended to vote against the government of
the day and was determined that our householders should become
homeowners, otherwise we would not have political stability. My other
important motive was to give all parents whose sons would have to do
national service a stake in the Singapore their sons had to defend. If the
soldiers family did not own their home, he would soon conclude he would
be fighting to protect the properties of the wealthy. I believed this sense of
ownership was vital for our new society which had no deep roots in a
common historical experience. (Lee Kuan Yew, 2000, pp. 116-7)

HDB: House- to Nation-builder

OWNERSHIP
Before 1964, HDB flats were for
rent, not for purchase.
1964 Home Ownership Scheme
introduced.
1967 Land Acquisition Act: Allowed
the State to purchase land
compulsorily at market prices; not
just HDB, but also JTC and URA.
1968 amendment to Central
Provident Fund Act: Allowed
members to use CPF savings to
purchase HDB flat.

INCLUSIVENESS
Raising of monthly income ceiling
to include more than low-income
group.
$1,000 in 1964 to $1,200 in 1971.
(More recently, from $8,000 to
$10,000, and latest is $12,000).

Meeting Aspirations
Relaxing criteria for purchase: Family
nucleus: reduced from 5 during SIT
times to 3 in 1962, then to 2 in 1976.
More options: opening of resale market
in 1971; meeting middle-income
aspirations, e.g. Housing and Urban
Development Company (HUDC) in
1974.
HDB moved from flat builder to a
new town developer.
Improvements to the home: bigger
homes, amenities, New Towns, estate
maintenance, urban redevelopment.
HDB Flat: as a source of status and
social personhood, and a source of
potential profit (Hill and Lian, p. 121).

By the mid-1970s, I noticed that

the letters to the newspapers had
changed. In the earlier years, people
were full of complaints about
resettlement. But in the 1970s, the
letters were more about asking why
they were still living in their squatter
housing, and when they would
expect to get their flat. That showed
that they had accepted the HDB,
and its flats were now sought after.
(Liu Thai Ker, former HDB CEO and
Chief Architect).

Meeting Aspirations

Housing and Urban Development Company (1974)

Not just Housing

Amenities
Jobs
Transportation
Schools
Sports and Recreation
Culture and Community

The Living Environment

The Impact of History

Consider the manner in which Singapore attained
independence, i.e. the series of events leading to 9 August
1965.
Political, economic, and social differences: different
approaches to society, economic haves and have-nots,
and ethnic tensions.

Tensions from resettlement:

Not merely moving from slums / squatters to modern housing.
But relocating settled communities.
Examples of Toa Payoh (1963), Kampong Kuchan (Kuchai)
(1973)

Info:
The Straits Times, 25 December 1949
The Singapore Free Press, 22 July 1954
The Straits Times, 5 January 1971
Berita Harian, 22 June 1973
Berita Harian, 5 December 1973

Kampong Kuchan / Kuchai (Lorong 3, Geylang)

Social Integration

Social Engineering
HDB LIFE
Lets Be Considerate Neighbours:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=MEWN2Av6-C0
Its My Town:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=f0g-3nAwrR4
Friends Next Door:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=JwdAPScAaKU
Eco Home:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=u2kID_IocxA

HDB Estate = Singapore Nation?

HDB estate as the basis of the
ideal Singapore citizen / resident?

Housing the most intrusive social

policy in Singapore. Tharman
Shanmugaratnam, 45th St. Gallen
Symposium:
http://www.connexion.sg/hot/det
ails/-/blog/a-full-transcript-ofdpm-tharman%E2%80%99sinterview-at-the-45th-st-gallensymposium
Flip-side of providing a social
good

Social Engineering Discrimination?

HDB LIFE
Lets Be Considerate
Neighbours
Its My Town

Friends Next Door

Eco Home

Politicisation of Housing
HDB flat / block / estate as a
political asset.
Selective En bloc redevelopment
scheme 1995; Main Upgrading
Programme (MUP) in 1989; Lift
Upgrading Programme (LUP) in
2001; Home Improvement
Programme (replaced MUP since
August 2007).
Implications of using a supposedly
public good for such ends.
Public housing: public good or
consumption good?

Housing in 21st Century Singapore

Housing, specifically the HDB flat, remains a national concern: basic
need (shelter), and an indicator of various imperatives (e.g. social
status, social security, political stability, and national identity).
Social pressures of a globalised economy: effects of successive
economic downturns, e.g. Asian financial crisis (1997-8); dotcom bust
(2001-2); global financial crisis 2008-2009.
Housing bubble burst:
Limits of CPF for housing exposed, e.g. cash-poor, asset rich, particularly for
retirees.
Limited supply of housing, increasing demand.
HDB flats priced out of reach of younger generation.
Income and social inequality.

Adjustments (since 2009)

Silver Housing Bonus for elderly: buying studio apartment, to sublet a
room / a flat for income.

Subsidies in the form of grants, with more for lower income households.
Measures to curb demand and speculation: more loan restrictions and
additional duties for those buying second or third HDB flat.
Increasing supply: 23,000 units built between 2006 and 2011; 25,000
units launched for sale in 2011 alone; 27,000 in 2012; 25,000 in 2013;
and since then, an additional 200,000 units to be added.
Cooling measures have worked: prices of HDB flats and non-HDB
housing flats have been falling. Summary:
http://www.srx.com.sg/cooling-measures

City Beautiful
The SPUR Group as an example of
civic action for nation-building.

Architects, planners, sociologists

coming together to debate, plan,
and push forward suggestions for
post-1965 Singapore.
Tays 1967 talk / article
referenced historical cities and
Raffles ideals.
Singapore: more than a place for
trade and commerce.
Tay Kheng Soon

City Beautiful
If we are working towards social
integration and a strong common
nationality based on justice and
equality, then this must be
reflected in our policies which
affect housing, for the place of
dwelling is and must be a
microcosm of the larger national
community. Housing is the central
theme in the process of building a
national community.
Tay Kheng Soon

House-proud
It calls for Singaporeans to be house-proud for Singapore as a city state
is the house for close to 2 million people. I submit that it is just as
vitally important to have a beautiful, delightful and more human
Singapore city a city in which every human value is catered for as it
is important to achieve economic take-off. The city beautiful is an
ideal worth working for, for it is the most real and direct reflection of
our citizenship. City Beautiful as opposed to city economic or city
functional is one in which the lives of its citizens is so embodied in it
till it is difficult to say whether it was the city which made the people
or the people made the city. (Tay Kheng Soon, 1967).

Concept Plan 1991

The vision of Concept Plan 1991 (CP1991)
was to create an island city that balances
work and play, culture and commerce; a city
of beauty, character and grace, with nature,
waterbodies and urban development weaved
together. (URA Concept Plan 1991,
https://www.ura.gov.sg/uol/conceptplan.aspx?p1=View-ConceptPlan&p2=Concept-Plan1991. Accessed 19
October 2015).
Towards a Tropical City of Excellence: for
Business, Living, Nature, Leisure, and Moving
Forward.
Regional centres (800,000 people each),
better quality housing, spaces for culture,
creativity, leisure and recreation, improved
transport networks.

Singapores Island Heritage

An island with an increased sense of islandness more beaches, marinas, resorts and
possibly entertainment parks as well as better
access to an attractive coastline and a city that
embraces the waterline more closely as a signal of
its island heritage. Singapore will be cloaked in
greenery, both manicured by man and protected
tracts of natural growth and with waterbodies
woven in the landscape. (URA Concept Plan 1991,
p. 4).

Tays 1967 idea for Singapore

The proximity to the sea, the coastal promenades, the hills
reserved for public and institutional use, and a reasonably
ordered urban street pattern - these we owe to Raffles'
foresight. We should therefore have the same boldness in
our environmental planning ideas, recognising the
uniqueness of Singapore's affinity to the sea and exploiting
it positively as a unifying feature of Singapore.
When Singapore citizens can be as proud of Singapore as a
Parisian is of Paris, a Greek of Athens, a Venetian of Venice,
we would have entrenched Singapore as an abstract ideal in
the hearts and minds of every Singapore citizen and we
would have achieved true nationhood.
(Rewritten slightly in website, 2010)

A Clean and Green Singapore

A well-rooted tradition of cleaning and greening Singapore.
Launch of Garden City campaign: See speech by Lee Kuan Yew, The
Future of Singapore Depends Heavily upon Its Cleanliness. (11 May
1967).
http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/data/pdfdoc/lky19670511.pdf
Transforming Spore into a 'Garden City, The Straits Times, 20 October
1967:
http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes1
9671020-1.2.64.aspx
Launch of Keep Singapore Clean campaign: See speech by The Prime
Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew at the Inauguration of the "Keep Singapore
Clean" Campaign On Tuesday, October, 1, 1968.
http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/data/pdfdoc/lky19681001.pdf

Cleaning up the Rivers

Time-line of Singapore River / Kallang Basin Clean-up:

http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article.aspx?articleid
=straitstimes19870625-1.2.56.7
Taking the plunge, The Straits Times, 16 May 1984:
http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19
840516-1.2.17.1.aspx
The Straits Times front-page article on 4 September 1987:
http://www.bsac.sg/854/divelog/river87.html

Singapore River and Kallang Basin Clean Up

Singapore River and

Kallang Basin Clean Up

The Straits Times, 16 May 1984:

http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19840516-1.2.17.1.aspx

There's life yet in this ol' river

The Straits Times, 4 September 1987

Continuing Traditions

Launch of Clean and Green Week,

November 1990

Making Singapore a Home

Nurturing a sense of pride
Basic needs

Aesthetics

Amenities
Memory

The Living Environment as Home

Concluding Thoughts
Different aspects of nation-building: housing a national
society and housing a family.
Housing remains a significant issue for Singapores nationbuilding efforts.
A basic human and social need.
Strong historical undercurrents: HDB a public / national
institution, and the HDB flat as a public good for people
moving from a transient society to a national community.

Housing a national society means more than just the

individual dwelling, and goes into the surrounding living
environment.
Government presence is prominent, but not omnipresent

Additional Materials
SBC 1988 - Diary of a Nation (Episode 4 - Homes for Our People): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvwJglr5aTw
SBC 1988 - Diary of a Nation (Episode 12 - Bukit Ho Swee Fire): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smMggwFO2KU
SBC 1988 - Diary of a Nation (Episode 27 - Keep Singapore Green)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMwNQZIu35Q
Our Garden City - Greening of Singapore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HEV7x5dcVI
A write-up by N. Sivasothi (from the Faculty of Science) on the river clean-up: https://otterman.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/thecleaning-up-of-singapore-river-and-kallang-basin-1977-1987/
Akitek Tenggara Singapore: http://www.rubanisation.org/index.php (Tay Kheng Soons website, with a collection of his articles).
Lim Kim San . Economic Development of Singapore , Accession Number 000526. 21 Reels (with online
transcripts). HDB from Reel 9: http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/oral_history_interviews/record-details/f1528d06-115d-11e383d5-0050568939ad?keywords=Lim%20Kim%20San&keywords-type=all
Loh Kah Seng, Squatters into Citizens: The 1961 Bukit Ho Swee Fire and the Making of Modern Singapore (NUS & NIAS Presses,
2013).
Aline K. Wong and Stephen H.K. Yeh (eds.), Housing a nation: 25 years of public housing in Singapore. Singapore: Published by
Maruzen Asia for Housing & Development Board, 1985.
Warren Fernandez, Our homes: 50 years of housing a nation. Singapore: Published for the Housing and Development Board by
Straits Times Press, c2011.

Azhar Ghani, Success Matters: Keeping Singapore Green, IPS Update, April 2011.
http://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/ips/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2013/04/Azhar_Keeping-Singapore-Green_010411.pdf