Somewhere in many housing activist minds there are secure thoughts of assurance for their interests: in one or two locations in the world truly successful public housing projects exist!
Wall to wall degenerates who party hearty spit black mould and deserve eviction? None of those. Every tenant a druggie or dope dealer, or married to one, or parent to one? None of them either.
In this comforting world of the imagination, public housing rents efficiently pay off development, construction, management and maintenance. In at least one case, public housing renters can purchase their unit over time, leaving them with the right to sell their home on the free market and become a millionaire. Okay, that’s too far fetched. But in at least one instance, it isn’t!
Welcome to everyone’s favourite public housing success story, where a country with a free enterprise economy decided that human shelter should not be managed by market. Instead Singapore by and large ‘socialized’ the housing corner as a community enterprise. The outcome has been a success story unlike virtually anywhere else in the world, cherished as a beacon of light by public housing proponents everywhere.
Yes indeed, more than 80% of Singapore’s housing has been built by the government-controlled Housing Development Corporation (HDB). And yet. It seems that Singapore’s national housing scheme is not bulletproof. It, too, is falling victim to the problem of too little land together with too much demand. Singapore, like a growing number of large cities, is being forced to ‘think small1.’
Read more at Insider: Singapore is piloting a new dorm-like public rental housing program for singles, and some say it looks worse than a Scandinavian prison
Footnotes
- For example, see this story from Japan: Three Tatami Mat Life: Coming Soon To Home Near You? Or Even Your Home?
