Housing in Singapore

Friday started out with our first test :( But the good news is it only got better from there! After class we headed over to the HDB, or Housing Development Board, Hub for an informational session on housing in Singapore. I thought it was going to be really boring (it sounds boring, doesn't it?), but it was actually really informative and interesting.

We have been learning a lot about housing in Singapore in our classes. Because Singapore is so small, the government set up a plan to fit everyone in comfortably, the HDB. 82% of Singaporeans live in public housing. While in other nations public housing is equivalent to low-income housing, that is not the case in Singapore. Almost everyone lives in public housing and those who do are known as "heartlanders" because the public housing flats are the heartland of the country (or so the government wants you to believe). All the neighborhoods have flats available for all income-levels so that one area does not become associated with high income or low income.

At the HDB hub, we were taken on a guided tour of a public housing museum. It basically showed the progression of housing in Singapore and how housing shaped the nation. It was obviously very pro-government and kind of a propaganda museum, but it was still informative if you took it with a grain of salt. There were also neat interactive exhibits that showed the layouts of typical neighborhoods in Singapore. They are so different than my neighborhood in Southlake, so that was nice to see. Another interesting tidbit about hosing in Singapore is that there are ethnic quotas for every 'flat' building. In order to promote ethnic tolerance and integration, the government requires all buildings to contain all ethnic groups in the same proportion that they exist in Singapore. For example, Singapore is 70% Chinese, so all public housing buildings must contain 70% Chinese people, even the buildings in Little India!

An interactive exhibit. You can move the computer across the neighborhood map, and click on the different buildings to find their purpose and function. A typical neighborhood includes many 'flats' (like high-rise apartment buildings), a community center, medical center, MRT station, and a market.

A display of one of the neighborhoods in Singapore.

At the end of the museum tour we walked across the building to the model flats. On our way we actually saw people looking over diagrams of the different neighborhoods and waiting in line to get on the housing waiting list (You have to get on a waiting list to get a house, and it takes a few years. Many men will propose to there girlfriends by asking them to get on the waiting list with them! You can only get a flat if you are married or if you are single you must be 35 or older, so it is very normal for people to live with their parents until they are married, or 35)! The model flats were so different than the typical American homes! It is crazy to think that while the American dream is a nice house with a big yard, the Singaporean dream is a little bitty flat in a huge building. People can choose between two, three, four, and five room flats. This doesn't mean two bedrooms, it means two ROOMS. So those flats have two rooms, plus a kitchen, and these were not big rooms! Plus all of the flats are the same, no matter where in the city you buy them.

The model five room flat. Obviously it has been decorated very well for show purposes.

Overall the HDB Hub was a great experience. I am not sure how I would feel about living in one of those little flats with a family, but the system has worked relatively well for Singapore!