When Singapore separated from Malaysia in 1965 it had aspirations to become a regional and world-beating economy. In 50-odd years it has achieved that goal.
From the word go, Singapore had no intention of leaving housing to the vagaries of a free market. It immediately created a Housing Development Board (HDB) with the intention of owning virtually all the residential land in the State, and leasing it to citizens in ways that were affordable to all. With this objective alone, it differed radically from ‘social’ housing in other capitalist states.
To believe that Singapore successfully provided a roof overhead for its entire population, is to belittle its extraordinary achievement. The HDB has provided a means for most of its citizens to own ‘socially developed’ housing.
How did it all come about? The workings of the HDB are not the same as the regulations that support ‘free’ market housing. They are different as well from the government subsidized rents of social and public housing that has been developed in other countries. It is nothing like the historic housing development of centrally-planned economies such as the USSR and China.
All this takes a knowledgable author to explain the ins and outs of Singapore’s housing success as well as its own unique difficulties. Try the following account by Marc Lee, a Senior Economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives British Columbia Office, in Policynote: Housing Lessons from Singapore
