Students were appalled by Big Brother’s appearance.  The presentation showed all Singaporeans being happy and comfortable.  Many of the students who had visited HDB flats with host families said they didn’t look anything like the interiors shown in the presentation.  We were left with the impression that HDB is a vast, heavy-handed government experiment in social engineering.  After all, HDB flats originally served to relocate poor and rural people off the land so the land could be used more efficiently.  People became “labor” and government housing created a disciplined and centralized work force. 

To be clear, there is private property and private housing in Singapore.  Private homes and apartments only house 15% of the population. 

These pictures are from the HDB museum.

This kitchen scene represents life in poor, overcrowded villages prior to HDB resettlement.

By the 1970s, resettled Singaporeans enjoyed the comforts represented in this creepy living room scene.

HDB and housing in general is the clearest example of the modernist machine rationalizing the humanity out of the human.  Blocks in the U.S. are usually cellblocks.  Government control is inherently inefficient, restrictive and morally wrong, so most Americans are taught.  Where, then is the outrage?  Why do Singaporeans yearning to be free not protest?  Why don’t the throw off the shackles of big government?

Well, as appalling as THE MACHINE is to most Americans, there are many things that Singapore can teach the United States.  There is no urban sprawl in Singapore.  Land planning conserves resources by making efficient, high-density use of land.  There are no ghettos, there is no post-industrial blight, there are almost no homeless people.  Planning residential areas separate from industrial areas prevents pollution from disproportionately affecting the poor.  Even though Singapore is one of the world’s busiest sea ports, has a large oil and petrochemical industry and has other manufacturing, it has very little pollution.  There are plenty of cars and trucks, but I have yet to see a traffic jam.  A busy island the size of Washington D.C. inside the beltway has 3.5 million people, hot and very humid weather, but has very little air pollution—a difference that I notice when comparing breathing here to breathing in North Carolina.  The island is highly urbanized, but there is no concrete jungle.  The city is full of greenscapes, parks, and landscaped boulevards. 

One reason people don’t protest in Singapore because they are fairly well taken care of.  In recent years, complaints against the government have been around unemployment that rose to about 6% (from 2%). 

There are no strip malls in Singapore.  There are no “big box” stores like those on Hanes Mall Boulevard in Winston-Salem or New Hope Commons in Durham.  There are upscale homes, but not ostentatious trophy-home developments or faux density like Southern Village.  There are shopping malls (God, are there shopping malls), but none that try to fabricate a cityscape like the Streets at Southpoint in Durham.  Parking lots are not allowed to take up precious street-level space. 

One thing I notice immediately is what a luxury space is in the United States.  Singapore has a little man’s complex.  Everywhere we go we learn about how small Singapore is.  You can only be small in relation to other things, though.  Singapore uses its small obsession to justify land redevelopment. 

Once HDB made Singapore a great place to live, people could chill on park benches, as depicted here.

People do Tai Chi in the park next to our apartments every morning. Here, HDB shows us people doing Tai Chi on video screens on a simulated indoor parkscape.

There are interesting comparisons to be drawn between the US and Singapore, despite the shock our students experienced at HDB.  Under Singapore’s authoritarian government, the country achieves an image of racial equality.  Under the banner of freedom, the United States sometimes tries to claim that we have achieved racial equally, but bitter inequalities still exist.  Singapore is a thriving manufacturing, shipping and financial center that is very much oriented towards the “free market.”  Class difference certainly exist in Singapore, but there are no slums and there is virtually full housing.  In the U.S., there is systematic discrimination against the poor and against people of color for housing and other resources like transportation, education and health care.  The poor also face higher pollution with fewer resources to cope with the problems it causes.  Homelessness is embarrassingly common.

Singapore exists at the edge of the modern and the post-modern.  Singapore is decidedly modern in that the government holds to the belief that industrial progress (THE MACHINE) can provide a better life for everyone.  To a certain extent it has by providing a relatively high standard of living.  The sacrifices, however, include the “freedoms” that our American students crave.  THE MACHINE is broken in America.  We know that progress benefits some and hurts others.  We know that we are not on a linear path to success through progress.  Yet we still create the image of progress.  We have our “freedoms,” but we also have inequality, homelessness, poverty, sprawl, pollution……. 

Can you have a clean, efficient city without (what Americans would call) repression?  It reminds me of the Simpson’s episode when the Springfield MENSA group (the people with the highest IQs in town) govern the city.  Initially, they create an efficient utopia that breaks down when different visions of utopia clash.  Singapore is only able to create the environment it has because the People’s Action Party (PAP) controls a monopoly on the government and doesn’t tolerate dissent.  (Rather than repress opposition, the party usually co-opts prominent opposition leaders). 

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