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Tomorrow's Cities: Singapore's plans for a smart nation

75 points by ValentineC 10y ago

contingencies 10y ago
Singapore's way of doing things is that the government leads, then others follow Yes, it's a significantly racially charged, class-entrenched society whose government rose to power on a platform of communism and claims to be a democracy while practicing outright fascism. It's disgusting that the US props it up.
- jhanschoo 10y ago
  c.f. my comment on the same quote, which contends that business and market-size reasons are a greater factor behind this development model, as opposed to ideological reasons. A common refrain from those interested in starting-up in the region is the lack of investment money and investors' own refrains on just how fragmented the regional market is. Those trying to do or set-up business in Singapore often find that there is little to complain about with respect to regulations. Probably the greatest problem that involves the government as a party is finding a sufficiently sizable customer base without government backing, but this is explained by limited SAM.
- finolex1 10y ago
  Yes, there are elements of racial and class tension in Singapore, but not significantly more than any other major city on earth. The US certainly does not prop the government up, unless you mean propping it up by inaction or non-intervention. As to the elements of authoritarianism, a lot of people would argue that the material and social benefits of living in an efficient, forward-thinking state outweighs the subtle elements of state control/overreach.
  - scurvy 10y ago
    It's an interesting moral bargain. Give up any rights to free speech and Internet freedom; in return get a well functioning government and municipal services. Sure, they still house the huddled (brown) masses in ghettos, but they're making progress with public housing for natives. But it's still hot as hell all the time all year. No thanks.
    - rorykoehler 10y ago
      I live here and while I don't envy the migrant workers who come here to build HDBs it is clear they do it because the alternative is far worse. They get lodgings and enough pay that they can send money home to support their family, buy some property and eventually move back. The issue is with systemic economic inequality between countries more than with Singapore itself.
      - sho 10y ago
        I agree. And I actually admire the way Singapore is economically honest in this way. By hiring migrant workers to, eg, build the new MRTs, it gets them done much cheaper - and provides thousands of workers with much better jobs than they could have got at home. That money goes straight back to their home countries, raising the wealth of both. Compare to Australia, my own home country, where we could never countenance the ideas of "foreigners coming to take our jobs" - so infrastructure costs 5x as much and, more likely, simply never happens. It wouldn't surprise me if Singapore's what is it, 3 new MRT lines right now? costs the same or less as Sydney's 1 new line. And all the people we could have hired from the philippines or whereever are sitting in their slums unemployed. Who's racist again? Which is more ethical? Which is the better outcome? It boggles my mind how people can be all for foreign labour being used to make things overseas, for example the computer they're typing their comment on, but suddenly against the idea when the labourers have to come here temporarily to make it. It's the same damn thing!
        satori99 10y ago
        I am also an Aussie, but I have a sister who is a permanent resident in Singapore, and owns a house and a business there. I have spent plenty of time there, and have met lots of western ex-pats who have found success there. But the immigrant worker thing bugs me. These workers, mostly women, are treated very poorly from what I have observed. I have heard my sister threaten her nannies with deportation for not complying with her orders, and have seen and heard of other ex-pats behaving even worse towards their immigrant employees. It seemed to me to be so normalized, that my sister and her friends do not recognize their behavior as being in any way abhorrent. I would hate to see that sort of tiered society in Australia ever. It might work on paper but it also changes the nature of the people they serve in an ugly way.
  - CyberDildonics 10y ago
    > living in an efficient, forward-thinking state outweighs the subtle elements of state control/overreach You do realize they throw people in jail for criticizing the government on facebook right?
    - finolex1 10y ago
      As someone who has lived in Singapore for a couple of decades I think I'm well suited to answering this. There is plenty of criticism that goes on against the government both online and in real life. The only people who are charged with libel suits are those who have either - a) put forth blatantly false statements and have achieved a certain level of fame b) made statements against certain races and religions. Obviously this isn't the same level of freedom of speech that is found in America but it is nowhere near as draconian as the western media would like to portray. The number of people who fall into the categories above are a handful. For the millions of people who are only superficially engaged politically this simply does not matter to them, and the quality of living they enjoy far outweighs whatever prohibitions on free speech is imposed.
      - hellofunk 10y ago
        > For the millions of people who are only superficially engaged politically People are much less likely to be politically engaged in Singapore because of the overall concern about how speaking out could affect them negatively. In private, you often hear strong opinions from taxi drivers, for example, who think they are anonymous to you, but rarely will they speak up in public. That is what happens in a society without free speech and when people can be publicly prosecuted for what they say.
      - CyberDildonics 10y ago
        Charged for "promoting feelings of ill-will and hostility" http://www.therakyatpost.com/world/2015/09/21/filipino-nurse-in-singapore-jailed-for-sedition-through-facebook/ http://www.therakyatpost.com/world/2015/09/21/filipino-nurse... Teenager jailed for insulting Lee Kuan Yew http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37505951 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37505951 Same event, one of the charges is "wounding religious feeling" http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/29/asia/singapore-amos-yee-teen-blogger-sentence/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/29/asia/singapore-amos-yee-teen-b...
- linuxkerneldev 10y ago
  > significantly racially charged Could you cite some evidence for this? I don't see anything to that degree in wikipedia. > class-entrenched society What does that mean? Is it significantly different than the US? I can see people using the terms "racially charged, class-entrenched society" to increasingly describe us as well. > It's disgusting that the US props it up. I had never heard that the US props up Singapore before. Care to provide some evidence?
  - contingencies 10y ago
    significantly racially charged ... could you cite some evidence for this? All the lowest rung jobs in Singapore are done by Indian/Indonesian/Philippino migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights. class-entrenched ... what does that mean? It means wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified. the US props up Singapore In exchange for looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship and history of large scale regional money laundering, the US receives the right to use the island as a strategic military base and regional signals intelligence collection point.
    - sho 10y ago
      > migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights How is this anything other than a straightforward win/win trade? The country gets work done for cheaper than hiring locals; the migrant workers make more than they could in their home countries. Mistreatment is of course illegal and they are in general free to leave at any time. Exactly how is this bad, unless you are against trade itself? > wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified Like every other country on earth, you mean? Except there's no real old money, because the country was only founded in the 1960s. > looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship Now you're just talking nonsense. Yeah, the fascist dictatorship with the single best passport on earth, that millions of people move to for work. Uh-huh. Your opinions are so wilfully and aggressively ignorant that I actually wonder if you're trolling.
      - 10y ago
- CyberDildonics 10y ago
  This completely true, but Singapore's propaganda goes over so well that people on hacker news don't want to hear it. Singapore handles its financials well as a country and that is about it. The extreme difference in the quality of life between the haves and have-nots is disgusting. There is no freedom of speech, the government is a sham democracy, and people's 'rights' are basically non-existent.
- deleted 10y ago
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- davidkohcw 10y ago
  When I read your reply I had to laugh and comment. I'm not sure where you got your impression of Singapore, but I think you are truly misinformed. May I ask have you ever been to Singapore or you just formed your own opinions of it online? I'm a foreigner living in Singapore for the past 7 or so years and who has gone through the education system here. > significantly racially charged What evidence do you have of this? In your other comment you say they come in with significantly restricted rights -> what does that even mean? First I will say that no one is forcing anybody to come into Singapore. These migrant workers come to Singapore because after weighing the odds, they feel that they can get a better life in Singapore instead of their home countries. > class-entrenched society In Singapore we have National Service. From the richest to the poorest Singaporeans, you serve national service together side-by-side doing the same thing. There is virtually no way of avoiding NS and there are heavy penalties if you do. Even the prime minister's children serve NS. On top of that more than 80% of the population live in government housing flats. And these flats are not cheap, some of the bigger units have sold for more than 1 million dollars. > rose to power on a platform of communism This is the funniest part. The government was so against communism that communist leaders were jailed... and this harsh treatment of communist leaders is a common critic of Singapore. So for you to say they rose to power on the platform of communism just shows the depth of your misunderstanding. Now, Singapore is not perfect. But trust me, its far better than whatever picture you are trying to paint of it.
  - wahern 10y ago
    > > rose to power on a platform of communism > This is the funniest part. Not just funny, but suspiciously racist. Ethnic Chinese in Malaysia and Indonesia were branded as communist all through the 1950s and 1960s and, especially in Indonesia, slaughtered. contingencies sounds like he might be from one of the non-Chinese ethnic groups in SE Asia, or part of such a family. He's not wrong that there's deep racism in Singapore. But it goes both ways. Singapore was ejected from the Malaysian Federation for baldly racist reasons--the ethnic Malays wanted to consolidate political power. The Chinese in that region are like the Jews of Europe--economically successful but culturally still the out group. It creates a ton of resentment for all sides. Also, I've traveled widely throughout the world and turns out _everybody_ is racist. The U.S. is probably one of the least racist countries in the world. Why? Because we _talk_ about it and _admit_ it. In the vast majority of countries people still literally take for granted that ethnic group X is obviously naturally inferior, without making the connection between that belief and the Western concept of racism. In the U.S. even the most rabid racists go through great lengths to justify and explain their prejudice. Believe it or not, that's what progress looks like. People need to stop using racism as a cudgel as it makes it impossible for people to discuss issues of racism. It's like calling somebody Hitler--it just ends the conversation. Ultimately it makes it easier for people to stay in denial about racism.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  >It's disgusting that the US props it up. Morally speaking the US has a long way to go before it can claim any sort of authority. Singapore is also a much nicer place to spend time than the US which makes me (someone with a political philosophy practically the opposite of how Singapore is run) wonder if the means are less important than the ends.
  - jhanschoo 10y ago
    One of the common refrains by the Singaporean govt. is that they have their own way of doing things. Whereas idealized political systems are useful, and democratic ideology comfortable, it seems to me that the role geography (both natural and human) plays in shaping a society's values and politics is often neglected in layman discussions about foreign politics.
jhanschoo 10y ago
> "Singapore's way of doing things is that the government leads, then others follow," he told me. "This might be a problem - it is too centralised and so it may take too long for plans to trickle down. Thus far, this economic model has well helped Singapore keep up with the times—though often not the first mover, Singapore is a consistent adopter of technologies just as they go mainstream. (c.f. NFC in public transport, sustainable architecture, smartphones, optical fibre) But given the region's diverse business climates, I wonder if the more usual decentralized approach makes sense for most verticals for the region. Without significant expertise and infrastructure in localizing across the region, the SAM for any new product or service seems to be sufficiently small that technological improvements in most markets do not scale great enough to offset R&D costs and other fixed-cost risks for the potential margins to be enticing to investors.
freelancepuss 10y ago
If your job requires you to be there, in face-to-face spitting style, then your job is not about being creative, and then you won't make it anyway, because you will be replaced by either a cheaper migrant worker or else your job will be automated into oblivion. If your job does not require you to be there, in that case, why would you actually care that "smart nation" can only be bullshit? You can perfectly well NOT care from Bangkok or Auckland. You do NOT need to be there in order NOT to care. You can do that from anywhere.
mc32 10y ago
One big improvement they have had is just getting air-con in the bus terminuses and hubs. Even in January any time outside means dripping sweat. They used to be open-air. Rather then the government lead (and miss) why not have the government act more as an even-distributor of things which are already gaining traction. Years ago during Japan's go-go years, they have renderings and future plans for completely redesigned megacities made up of multiple semi-self-contained smaller hyper integrated neighborhoods --sometimes a neighborhood would be gigantic pyramidal buildings of capable of being self-sustaining in terms of labor, housing, recreation, food production, etc. but then the economy tanked and pop growth flatlined and we have relative slow decline and forgotten are those grand dreams of the future.
- vosper 10y ago
  > a neighborhood would be gigantic pyramidal buildings of capable of being self-sustaining in terms of labor, housing, recreation, food production, etc. but then the economy tanked and pop growth flatlined and we have relative slow decline and forgotten are those grand dreams of the future. Those were a fantasy, though, surely. I doubt we could make such structures (I think sometimes called arcologies?) work with todays technology, even if we had the resources and no regulatory hurdles. Maybe in a hundred years...
  - crdb 10y ago
    You sort of have a small version in the Orchard Road stretch. You could conceivably live above ION Orchard, go to work in your Takashimaya office, eat at an ultra cheap Lucky Plaza eatery or blow $300 at Les Amis at Shaw Centre, shop and exercise in any of the buildings in between, and never be exposed to the outside whilst living quite a comfortable life. Same at Vivocity, Raffles Place, Suntec/Promenade/Esplanade...
    - sho 10y ago
      If you're living above ION then I doubt you need to scrimp by eating at Lucky Plaza... When I stay in jakarta it's a similar feeling. A common pattern is an "anchor" mall with apartments and office buildings adjacent and in theory you could just stay inside the complex the whole time. GI/PI and Senayan Square come to mind. You could just build a dome over SS (and being jakarta, i wish they would..)
yomly 10y ago
Is anyone here working out in Sg? How is the tech scene there? Are salaries still low wrt the rest of the world for engineers?

75 points by ValentineC 10y ago

Singapore's way of doing things is that the government leads, then others follow Yes, it's a significantly racially charged, class-entrenched society whose government rose to power on a platform of communism and claims to be a democracy while practicing outright fascism. It's disgusting that the US props it up.

jhanschoo 10y ago
c.f. my comment on the same quote, which contends that business and market-size reasons are a greater factor behind this development model, as opposed to ideological reasons. A common refrain from those interested in starting-up in the region is the lack of investment money and investors' own refrains on just how fragmented the regional market is. Those trying to do or set-up business in Singapore often find that there is little to complain about with respect to regulations. Probably the greatest problem that involves the government as a party is finding a sufficiently sizable customer base without government backing, but this is explained by limited SAM.
finolex1 10y ago
Yes, there are elements of racial and class tension in Singapore, but not significantly more than any other major city on earth. The US certainly does not prop the government up, unless you mean propping it up by inaction or non-intervention. As to the elements of authoritarianism, a lot of people would argue that the material and social benefits of living in an efficient, forward-thinking state outweighs the subtle elements of state control/overreach.
- scurvy 10y ago
  It's an interesting moral bargain. Give up any rights to free speech and Internet freedom; in return get a well functioning government and municipal services. Sure, they still house the huddled (brown) masses in ghettos, but they're making progress with public housing for natives. But it's still hot as hell all the time all year. No thanks.
  - rorykoehler 10y ago
    I live here and while I don't envy the migrant workers who come here to build HDBs it is clear they do it because the alternative is far worse. They get lodgings and enough pay that they can send money home to support their family, buy some property and eventually move back. The issue is with systemic economic inequality between countries more than with Singapore itself.
    - sho 10y ago
      I agree. And I actually admire the way Singapore is economically honest in this way. By hiring migrant workers to, eg, build the new MRTs, it gets them done much cheaper - and provides thousands of workers with much better jobs than they could have got at home. That money goes straight back to their home countries, raising the wealth of both. Compare to Australia, my own home country, where we could never countenance the ideas of "foreigners coming to take our jobs" - so infrastructure costs 5x as much and, more likely, simply never happens. It wouldn't surprise me if Singapore's what is it, 3 new MRT lines right now? costs the same or less as Sydney's 1 new line. And all the people we could have hired from the philippines or whereever are sitting in their slums unemployed. Who's racist again? Which is more ethical? Which is the better outcome? It boggles my mind how people can be all for foreign labour being used to make things overseas, for example the computer they're typing their comment on, but suddenly against the idea when the labourers have to come here temporarily to make it. It's the same damn thing!
      - satori99 10y ago
        I am also an Aussie, but I have a sister who is a permanent resident in Singapore, and owns a house and a business there. I have spent plenty of time there, and have met lots of western ex-pats who have found success there. But the immigrant worker thing bugs me. These workers, mostly women, are treated very poorly from what I have observed. I have heard my sister threaten her nannies with deportation for not complying with her orders, and have seen and heard of other ex-pats behaving even worse towards their immigrant employees. It seemed to me to be so normalized, that my sister and her friends do not recognize their behavior as being in any way abhorrent. I would hate to see that sort of tiered society in Australia ever. It might work on paper but it also changes the nature of the people they serve in an ugly way.
- CyberDildonics 10y ago
  > living in an efficient, forward-thinking state outweighs the subtle elements of state control/overreach You do realize they throw people in jail for criticizing the government on facebook right?
  - finolex1 10y ago
    As someone who has lived in Singapore for a couple of decades I think I'm well suited to answering this. There is plenty of criticism that goes on against the government both online and in real life. The only people who are charged with libel suits are those who have either - a) put forth blatantly false statements and have achieved a certain level of fame b) made statements against certain races and religions. Obviously this isn't the same level of freedom of speech that is found in America but it is nowhere near as draconian as the western media would like to portray. The number of people who fall into the categories above are a handful. For the millions of people who are only superficially engaged politically this simply does not matter to them, and the quality of living they enjoy far outweighs whatever prohibitions on free speech is imposed.
    - hellofunk 10y ago
      > For the millions of people who are only superficially engaged politically People are much less likely to be politically engaged in Singapore because of the overall concern about how speaking out could affect them negatively. In private, you often hear strong opinions from taxi drivers, for example, who think they are anonymous to you, but rarely will they speak up in public. That is what happens in a society without free speech and when people can be publicly prosecuted for what they say.
    - CyberDildonics 10y ago
      Charged for "promoting feelings of ill-will and hostility" http://www.therakyatpost.com/world/2015/09/21/filipino-nurse-in-singapore-jailed-for-sedition-through-facebook/ http://www.therakyatpost.com/world/2015/09/21/filipino-nurse... Teenager jailed for insulting Lee Kuan Yew http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37505951 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37505951 Same event, one of the charges is "wounding religious feeling" http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/29/asia/singapore-amos-yee-teen-blogger-sentence/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/29/asia/singapore-amos-yee-teen-b...
linuxkerneldev 10y ago
> significantly racially charged Could you cite some evidence for this? I don't see anything to that degree in wikipedia. > class-entrenched society What does that mean? Is it significantly different than the US? I can see people using the terms "racially charged, class-entrenched society" to increasingly describe us as well. > It's disgusting that the US props it up. I had never heard that the US props up Singapore before. Care to provide some evidence?
- contingencies 10y ago
  significantly racially charged ... could you cite some evidence for this? All the lowest rung jobs in Singapore are done by Indian/Indonesian/Philippino migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights. class-entrenched ... what does that mean? It means wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified. the US props up Singapore In exchange for looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship and history of large scale regional money laundering, the US receives the right to use the island as a strategic military base and regional signals intelligence collection point.
  - sho 10y ago
    > migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights How is this anything other than a straightforward win/win trade? The country gets work done for cheaper than hiring locals; the migrant workers make more than they could in their home countries. Mistreatment is of course illegal and they are in general free to leave at any time. Exactly how is this bad, unless you are against trade itself? > wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified Like every other country on earth, you mean? Except there's no real old money, because the country was only founded in the 1960s. > looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship Now you're just talking nonsense. Yeah, the fascist dictatorship with the single best passport on earth, that millions of people move to for work. Uh-huh. Your opinions are so wilfully and aggressively ignorant that I actually wonder if you're trolling.
    - 10y ago
CyberDildonics 10y ago
This completely true, but Singapore's propaganda goes over so well that people on hacker news don't want to hear it. Singapore handles its financials well as a country and that is about it. The extreme difference in the quality of life between the haves and have-nots is disgusting. There is no freedom of speech, the government is a sham democracy, and people's 'rights' are basically non-existent.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
davidkohcw 10y ago
When I read your reply I had to laugh and comment. I'm not sure where you got your impression of Singapore, but I think you are truly misinformed. May I ask have you ever been to Singapore or you just formed your own opinions of it online? I'm a foreigner living in Singapore for the past 7 or so years and who has gone through the education system here. > significantly racially charged What evidence do you have of this? In your other comment you say they come in with significantly restricted rights -> what does that even mean? First I will say that no one is forcing anybody to come into Singapore. These migrant workers come to Singapore because after weighing the odds, they feel that they can get a better life in Singapore instead of their home countries. > class-entrenched society In Singapore we have National Service. From the richest to the poorest Singaporeans, you serve national service together side-by-side doing the same thing. There is virtually no way of avoiding NS and there are heavy penalties if you do. Even the prime minister's children serve NS. On top of that more than 80% of the population live in government housing flats. And these flats are not cheap, some of the bigger units have sold for more than 1 million dollars. > rose to power on a platform of communism This is the funniest part. The government was so against communism that communist leaders were jailed... and this harsh treatment of communist leaders is a common critic of Singapore. So for you to say they rose to power on the platform of communism just shows the depth of your misunderstanding. Now, Singapore is not perfect. But trust me, its far better than whatever picture you are trying to paint of it.
- wahern 10y ago
  > > rose to power on a platform of communism > This is the funniest part. Not just funny, but suspiciously racist. Ethnic Chinese in Malaysia and Indonesia were branded as communist all through the 1950s and 1960s and, especially in Indonesia, slaughtered. contingencies sounds like he might be from one of the non-Chinese ethnic groups in SE Asia, or part of such a family. He's not wrong that there's deep racism in Singapore. But it goes both ways. Singapore was ejected from the Malaysian Federation for baldly racist reasons--the ethnic Malays wanted to consolidate political power. The Chinese in that region are like the Jews of Europe--economically successful but culturally still the out group. It creates a ton of resentment for all sides. Also, I've traveled widely throughout the world and turns out _everybody_ is racist. The U.S. is probably one of the least racist countries in the world. Why? Because we _talk_ about it and _admit_ it. In the vast majority of countries people still literally take for granted that ethnic group X is obviously naturally inferior, without making the connection between that belief and the Western concept of racism. In the U.S. even the most rabid racists go through great lengths to justify and explain their prejudice. Believe it or not, that's what progress looks like. People need to stop using racism as a cudgel as it makes it impossible for people to discuss issues of racism. It's like calling somebody Hitler--it just ends the conversation. Ultimately it makes it easier for people to stay in denial about racism.
rorykoehler 10y ago
>It's disgusting that the US props it up. Morally speaking the US has a long way to go before it can claim any sort of authority. Singapore is also a much nicer place to spend time than the US which makes me (someone with a political philosophy practically the opposite of how Singapore is run) wonder if the means are less important than the ends.
- jhanschoo 10y ago
  One of the common refrains by the Singaporean govt. is that they have their own way of doing things. Whereas idealized political systems are useful, and democratic ideology comfortable, it seems to me that the role geography (both natural and human) plays in shaping a society's values and politics is often neglected in layman discussions about foreign politics.

jhanschoo 10y ago

> "Singapore's way of doing things is that the government leads, then others follow," he told me. "This might be a problem - it is too centralised and so it may take too long for plans to trickle down. Thus far, this economic model has well helped Singapore keep up with the times—though often not the first mover, Singapore is a consistent adopter of technologies just as they go mainstream. (c.f. NFC in public transport, sustainable architecture, smartphones, optical fibre) But given the region's diverse business climates, I wonder if the more usual decentralized approach makes sense for most verticals for the region. Without significant expertise and infrastructure in localizing across the region, the SAM for any new product or service seems to be sufficiently small that technological improvements in most markets do not scale great enough to offset R&D costs and other fixed-cost risks for the potential margins to be enticing to investors.

freelancepuss 10y ago

If your job requires you to be there, in face-to-face spitting style, then your job is not about being creative, and then you won't make it anyway, because you will be replaced by either a cheaper migrant worker or else your job will be automated into oblivion. If your job does not require you to be there, in that case, why would you actually care that "smart nation" can only be bullshit? You can perfectly well NOT care from Bangkok or Auckland. You do NOT need to be there in order NOT to care. You can do that from anywhere.

mc32 10y ago

One big improvement they have had is just getting air-con in the bus terminuses and hubs. Even in January any time outside means dripping sweat. They used to be open-air. Rather then the government lead (and miss) why not have the government act more as an even-distributor of things which are already gaining traction. Years ago during Japan's go-go years, they have renderings and future plans for completely redesigned megacities made up of multiple semi-self-contained smaller hyper integrated neighborhoods --sometimes a neighborhood would be gigantic pyramidal buildings of capable of being self-sustaining in terms of labor, housing, recreation, food production, etc. but then the economy tanked and pop growth flatlined and we have relative slow decline and forgotten are those grand dreams of the future.

vosper 10y ago
> a neighborhood would be gigantic pyramidal buildings of capable of being self-sustaining in terms of labor, housing, recreation, food production, etc. but then the economy tanked and pop growth flatlined and we have relative slow decline and forgotten are those grand dreams of the future. Those were a fantasy, though, surely. I doubt we could make such structures (I think sometimes called arcologies?) work with todays technology, even if we had the resources and no regulatory hurdles. Maybe in a hundred years...
- crdb 10y ago
  You sort of have a small version in the Orchard Road stretch. You could conceivably live above ION Orchard, go to work in your Takashimaya office, eat at an ultra cheap Lucky Plaza eatery or blow $300 at Les Amis at Shaw Centre, shop and exercise in any of the buildings in between, and never be exposed to the outside whilst living quite a comfortable life. Same at Vivocity, Raffles Place, Suntec/Promenade/Esplanade...
  - sho 10y ago
    If you're living above ION then I doubt you need to scrimp by eating at Lucky Plaza... When I stay in jakarta it's a similar feeling. A common pattern is an "anchor" mall with apartments and office buildings adjacent and in theory you could just stay inside the complex the whole time. GI/PI and Senayan Square come to mind. You could just build a dome over SS (and being jakarta, i wish they would..)

yomly 10y ago

Is anyone here working out in Sg? How is the tech scene there? Are salaries still low wrt the rest of the world for engineers?