would like to re-frame the question to ask: “What is the point of our Singapore laws to facilitate the national agenda of urban renewal and higher land-use intensity?” Just so as to have a brand new, gleaming all-glass 36-storey apartment block on Holland Road (instead of a 15-storey block that grossly under-utilized the existing plot ratio)???
What is the point of having shiny new buildings if we don’t BRING OUR PEOPLE ALONG WITH US in our quest of Re-making Singapore??? A country is NOT made up of a collection of swanky buildings but of the citizens who live, breathe and dream in these buildings (even as we are labelled as “lesser mortals” at best and ungrateful domestic riff-raff at worst).
More elaboration is in my blog entry dated 9 Feb 2009 entitled “Purpose of ‘purposive’ – Gillman Heights verdict”. http://singaporeenbloc.blogspot.com/2009/02/purpose-of-purposive.html
2 comments:
Ya, my wife and I agree with you. What for we have all these swanky condos which only the foreigners and PRs buy in good times? In bad times, will these foreigners and PRs stand by Singapore?
The greatest irony is that the govt has pushed out we Singaporeans from the good areas with this en bloc monster. So we have to make way and move out to the outskirts or the heartlands. What to do?
You asked a rhetorical question of "What to do".
Hmmm ... how do I put it? If I may draw the following analogies:
(a) The Thais were the only ones in South East Asia who did not need to fight the Japanese. Reason: The Thais surrendered even before the invasion.
(b) Contrast this with Force 136 and Mr Lim Bo Seng who fought against all odds to take on the Japanese. For that, these heroes are honoured in Singapore's history forever.
Some of us do more. Some of us do less. Some make a difference (or at least try to do so). Some don't even try. In the end, we choose: To do or NOT to do.
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