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Singapore may have the world's best modern architecture. I used to be a skeptic of modern architecture but I really enjoy builidngs like the Interlace and Marin

Singapore may have the world's best modern architecture. I used to be a skeptic of modern architecture but I really enjoy builidngs like the Interlace and Marina Bay Sands. One of many things that changed my thoughts when I was living there. Fantastic country and people.

jjcm 8y ago
I'm very curious to live there at some point in the next 5 years. What things would you have done differently if you could go back to when you first moved there?
- shaki-dora 8y ago
  Not OP, but I found Singapore to be rather hell-ish. It feels like one giant American mall, with possibly too much money for its own good. HK, as a comparison, has preserved its character and charm, with life on the streets and many unique neighborhoods. Singapore happens when you think SimCity is realistic: the primacy of the automobile, the belief that one additional Starbucks is always better than one marginal tree, the instinct that any public meeting must be broken up, unless it’s a queueueueueue (a long queue) at an Apple Store, etc. It’s completely identical to Dubai or any of the Gulf metropolis, only with rain. The #1 Thing to Do in Singapour is taking the bridge to Malaysia, and never coming back. They think they can demolish the brutalism, but it’s already too late: it must be in the water supply. Anything built after ca 1980 is still brutalism, only with glass. When you get to Singapore, you take a $50 rise to the city center, and wonder why you are still in the airport. Singapore is what happens when you don’t allow creative people the occasional drag of a joint: they take revenge, and make you live in it.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    The parent is a controversial opinion and one that I do not entirely share, but as a person who has lived in Singapore for a while I am comfortable saying that it's a legitimate, plausible opinion. To the people down-voting it because you disagree, please rescind your vote and supply a rebuttal in words.
    - fhe 8y ago
      agreed.
    - shaki-dora 8y ago
      It’s fine, I was arguably overdoing it for comedic effect. Still, for Americans especially, I believe there are destinations in SE Asia that are far more rewarding than Sing Sing. If you need the economic environment, HK would be an obvious choice, and maybe Shanghai. If you are doing remote work, the list becomes far longer. I spent three years in different cities worldwide in ca. 3-month intervals before getting stuck in Berlin, and I would recommend Barcelona, Florence, HK, Australia’s east coast, Melbourne, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, Rabat, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Beirut (check the local war forecast), and Havanna.
      - tyu1000 8y ago
        No, it's not. Downvotes are not for opinions you disagree with.
        CaptainZapp 8y ago
        I agree, but will never ever comment on this (in a thread, where I'm downvoted). The worst is being downvoted for the dissemination of fact, ideally supported by sources. Some lesser smart members of this fine forum seem to even downvote comments like this if they dare to go against the party line. Then again, and as the moderators outline correctly, it's often auto-corrective and I, for one, upvote comments, which are unfairly downvoted. No matter their merits. Edit : Clarification
      - Gigablah 8y ago
        At least you didn’t quote William Gibson.
        kirvyteo 8y ago
        Lol...I was waiting...
      - 8y ago
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - sjwright 8y ago
    > HK, as a comparison, has preserved its character and charm I don't think that's entirely fair. The way I like to describe it is that Singapore is Asian-Sydney and Hong Kong is Asian-New York. All are world-class cities, but Hong Kong and New York have deep and diverse layers of culture and subculture that are immediately apparent to the most casual of observer. Sydney and Singapore have plenty of depth which is easy for residents to see but for tourists it isn't nearly so obvious. (Disclaimer: I live in Sydney.)
    - mlrtime 8y ago
      I like to use the Singapore=Chicago(downtown) Hong Kong=New York. Chicago is clean with great architecture, New York never sleeps, raw gritty.
    - spacehunt 8y ago
      Interesting, when I was living in Melbourne I thought of Sydney as an Aussie-HK. (Before Melbourne I lived in HK until I was 10.) Obviously not fair to both cities.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    > Singapore happens when you think SimCity is realistic: the primacy of the automobile, the belief that one additional Starbucks is always better than one marginal tree, the instinct that any public meeting must be broken up, unless it’s a queueueueueue (a long queue) at an Apple Store, etc. My abiding memory of Singapore is of visiting after about five months without leaving Shanghai and feeling like I was communing with nature. Everything seemed to be either a road, a building, a tree or a park. And there was a lot of park. One day I left my hotel at eight or nine and just walked until I got to the coast. It was amazing and there is no way to do anything similar in the equivalent area of Shanghai. For six months afterwards I would occasionally think of what a hideous wasted opportunity Pudong was in terms of urban planning. Thirty years ago it was farmland and now it’s city but it’s the worst kind of horrible car centric two lanes each way hellhole without adequate parks. When I got to Singapore in the airport I saw the slogan, “Not a garden city, a city in a garden”. I obviously thought it was total bullshit but it wasn’t, it was amazing. To be honest I’d rather live in Hong Kong because the food and hiking are better but Singapore is still a great, great place to visit.
  - paultopia 8y ago
    OMG the mallishness. I went there to teach an intensive mini-course a few years ago, and lost my voice in 2 days from the constant air conditioned everything.
  - exidy 8y ago
    I really cannot get my head around this comment. Are you referring to one of the few (only?) cities on earth that caps the total number of vehicles on the road[1]? That has more urban green space than Sydney, Sacramento or Vancouver[2]? That has built 200 km of subway in 30 years[3]? I am not a citizen of Singapore but I am a resident. There are plenty of valid criticisms to be made but I don't recognise the city you are describing. I feel perhaps you never stepped out of River Valley. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Entitlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Entitlement [2] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/not-a-concrete-jungle-singapore-beats-16-cities-in-green-urban-areas https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/not-a-con... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Rapid_Transit_(Singapore) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Rapid_Transit_(Singapore)
- sjwright 8y ago
  My experience of Singapore taught me that it appears to lack diversity of culture/experience to the uninitiated, but it absolutely is there—it just fits within a (much) narrower dynamic range than most other cities. But there is diversity within the nuances once your eyes adjust to the subtle shades. My advice is to avoid going back to the same places too often. There is an endless list of great places to discover; Singapore might be small relative to Earth, but it's still huge relative to one lifetime.
  - Ayesh 8y ago
    Conpared to many cities that we consider diverse (NYC, Amsterdam, London, etc), Singapore is by far more diverse, perhaps only second d to Dubai. Their metro lines have announcements in 4 languages, and you can even get away without speaking English as a middleman langage. Majority of the people speak at least a little of other languages. It's always a mix of languages (Chinese, Malay/Indonesian, Tamil, Sinhalese, etc). It still has to mix with the European culture though. There are far more Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, and Australian influence.
    - sjwright 8y ago
      Singapore is highly multicultural but the depth is shallow. Strong national conformity tampers down the extremes of individualism.
- ozmbie 8y ago
  Make an effort to make friends with some locals. Otherwise it's easy to get stuck in the "expat bubble" where all you do is work, drink, and travel to places outside Singapore. My best memories are with local friends going to places I would have never known about. I lived there for 2 years. It's a fun place but it can get on your nerves at times. It's hot, crowded, everything (other than local food) is expensive, and the people can be petty and dogmatic. It's growing rapidly which is affecting racial and social cohesion. It's very much a "follow the rules and you'll be ok" place to live.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    Sounds like "Disneyland with death penalty" is still apt, then.
    - chillacy 8y ago
      Beats Compton with the death penalty...
- justaguyhere 8y ago
  I too am interested in at least visiting, if not living there. Are there any recommendations that is not crowded or too hot? The older I grow, the more I uncomfortable I am becoming with crowds

jjcm 8y ago

I'm very curious to live there at some point in the next 5 years. What things would you have done differently if you could go back to when you first moved there?

shaki-dora 8y ago
Not OP, but I found Singapore to be rather hell-ish. It feels like one giant American mall, with possibly too much money for its own good. HK, as a comparison, has preserved its character and charm, with life on the streets and many unique neighborhoods. Singapore happens when you think SimCity is realistic: the primacy of the automobile, the belief that one additional Starbucks is always better than one marginal tree, the instinct that any public meeting must be broken up, unless it’s a queueueueueue (a long queue) at an Apple Store, etc. It’s completely identical to Dubai or any of the Gulf metropolis, only with rain. The #1 Thing to Do in Singapour is taking the bridge to Malaysia, and never coming back. They think they can demolish the brutalism, but it’s already too late: it must be in the water supply. Anything built after ca 1980 is still brutalism, only with glass. When you get to Singapore, you take a $50 rise to the city center, and wonder why you are still in the airport. Singapore is what happens when you don’t allow creative people the occasional drag of a joint: they take revenge, and make you live in it.
- sjwright 8y ago
  The parent is a controversial opinion and one that I do not entirely share, but as a person who has lived in Singapore for a while I am comfortable saying that it's a legitimate, plausible opinion. To the people down-voting it because you disagree, please rescind your vote and supply a rebuttal in words.
  - fhe 8y ago
    agreed.
  - shaki-dora 8y ago
    It’s fine, I was arguably overdoing it for comedic effect. Still, for Americans especially, I believe there are destinations in SE Asia that are far more rewarding than Sing Sing. If you need the economic environment, HK would be an obvious choice, and maybe Shanghai. If you are doing remote work, the list becomes far longer. I spent three years in different cities worldwide in ca. 3-month intervals before getting stuck in Berlin, and I would recommend Barcelona, Florence, HK, Australia’s east coast, Melbourne, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, Rabat, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Beirut (check the local war forecast), and Havanna.
    - tyu1000 8y ago
      No, it's not. Downvotes are not for opinions you disagree with.
      - CaptainZapp 8y ago
        I agree, but will never ever comment on this (in a thread, where I'm downvoted). The worst is being downvoted for the dissemination of fact, ideally supported by sources. Some lesser smart members of this fine forum seem to even downvote comments like this if they dare to go against the party line. Then again, and as the moderators outline correctly, it's often auto-corrective and I, for one, upvote comments, which are unfairly downvoted. No matter their merits. Edit : Clarification
    - Gigablah 8y ago
      At least you didn’t quote William Gibson.
      - kirvyteo 8y ago
        Lol...I was waiting...
    - 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sjwright 8y ago
  > HK, as a comparison, has preserved its character and charm I don't think that's entirely fair. The way I like to describe it is that Singapore is Asian-Sydney and Hong Kong is Asian-New York. All are world-class cities, but Hong Kong and New York have deep and diverse layers of culture and subculture that are immediately apparent to the most casual of observer. Sydney and Singapore have plenty of depth which is easy for residents to see but for tourists it isn't nearly so obvious. (Disclaimer: I live in Sydney.)
  - mlrtime 8y ago
    I like to use the Singapore=Chicago(downtown) Hong Kong=New York. Chicago is clean with great architecture, New York never sleeps, raw gritty.
  - spacehunt 8y ago
    Interesting, when I was living in Melbourne I thought of Sydney as an Aussie-HK. (Before Melbourne I lived in HK until I was 10.) Obviously not fair to both cities.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  > Singapore happens when you think SimCity is realistic: the primacy of the automobile, the belief that one additional Starbucks is always better than one marginal tree, the instinct that any public meeting must be broken up, unless it’s a queueueueueue (a long queue) at an Apple Store, etc. My abiding memory of Singapore is of visiting after about five months without leaving Shanghai and feeling like I was communing with nature. Everything seemed to be either a road, a building, a tree or a park. And there was a lot of park. One day I left my hotel at eight or nine and just walked until I got to the coast. It was amazing and there is no way to do anything similar in the equivalent area of Shanghai. For six months afterwards I would occasionally think of what a hideous wasted opportunity Pudong was in terms of urban planning. Thirty years ago it was farmland and now it’s city but it’s the worst kind of horrible car centric two lanes each way hellhole without adequate parks. When I got to Singapore in the airport I saw the slogan, “Not a garden city, a city in a garden”. I obviously thought it was total bullshit but it wasn’t, it was amazing. To be honest I’d rather live in Hong Kong because the food and hiking are better but Singapore is still a great, great place to visit.
- paultopia 8y ago
  OMG the mallishness. I went there to teach an intensive mini-course a few years ago, and lost my voice in 2 days from the constant air conditioned everything.
- exidy 8y ago
  I really cannot get my head around this comment. Are you referring to one of the few (only?) cities on earth that caps the total number of vehicles on the road[1]? That has more urban green space than Sydney, Sacramento or Vancouver[2]? That has built 200 km of subway in 30 years[3]? I am not a citizen of Singapore but I am a resident. There are plenty of valid criticisms to be made but I don't recognise the city you are describing. I feel perhaps you never stepped out of River Valley. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Entitlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Entitlement [2] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/not-a-concrete-jungle-singapore-beats-16-cities-in-green-urban-areas https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/not-a-con... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Rapid_Transit_(Singapore) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Rapid_Transit_(Singapore)
sjwright 8y ago
My experience of Singapore taught me that it appears to lack diversity of culture/experience to the uninitiated, but it absolutely is there—it just fits within a (much) narrower dynamic range than most other cities. But there is diversity within the nuances once your eyes adjust to the subtle shades. My advice is to avoid going back to the same places too often. There is an endless list of great places to discover; Singapore might be small relative to Earth, but it's still huge relative to one lifetime.
- Ayesh 8y ago
  Conpared to many cities that we consider diverse (NYC, Amsterdam, London, etc), Singapore is by far more diverse, perhaps only second d to Dubai. Their metro lines have announcements in 4 languages, and you can even get away without speaking English as a middleman langage. Majority of the people speak at least a little of other languages. It's always a mix of languages (Chinese, Malay/Indonesian, Tamil, Sinhalese, etc). It still has to mix with the European culture though. There are far more Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, and Australian influence.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    Singapore is highly multicultural but the depth is shallow. Strong national conformity tampers down the extremes of individualism.
ozmbie 8y ago
Make an effort to make friends with some locals. Otherwise it's easy to get stuck in the "expat bubble" where all you do is work, drink, and travel to places outside Singapore. My best memories are with local friends going to places I would have never known about. I lived there for 2 years. It's a fun place but it can get on your nerves at times. It's hot, crowded, everything (other than local food) is expensive, and the people can be petty and dogmatic. It's growing rapidly which is affecting racial and social cohesion. It's very much a "follow the rules and you'll be ok" place to live.
- jacobush 8y ago
  Sounds like "Disneyland with death penalty" is still apt, then.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    Beats Compton with the death penalty...
justaguyhere 8y ago
I too am interested in at least visiting, if not living there. Are there any recommendations that is not crowded or too hot? The older I grow, the more I uncomfortable I am becoming with crowds