AnalysisWhy Hong Kong cannot copy Singapore’s approach to public housing
- Hong Kong’s struggles to house its population don’t just stem from its shortage of land, and looking to the Lion City as a model is unrealistic
He argued Singapore’s solution had simply been land reclamation, but this is an oversimplification of the city state’s approach to its acute home shortage of the 1960s. The reasons behind Singapore’s successes have little to do with reclaimed land, and the conditions in Singapore when Lee was prime minister are vastly different from those in Hong Kong today.
Reclamation was never a key feature of Singapore’s public housing policies. Most of the country’s reclaimed land has been put to non-residential uses such as the airport, industrial parks, ports, the new financial district at Marina Bay, and recreation. Only a thin sliver in the southeast has been set aside for public housing. Most future residential land parcels are also not on reclaimed land.
