Planning That Works: Housing Policy and Economic Development in Singapore

Abstract

Singapore's housing policy has played a critical role in the young nation's rapid social and economic progress over the past two decades. Singapore's public housing program was aimed at building and maintain ing socio-economic and political sta bility in the republic. It has enabled the state to control the nation's vital, scarce resources (land, in particular) and to shape the socio-economic structure based on its leadership's vision of an egalitarian Singaporean society. The paper explains the is land's urban planning concept, traces the development of the repub lic's enormous public housing pro gram, identifies the mechanisms that contribute to the program's success, discusses the factors that explain the priority given to public housing, and abstracts lessons from the Singapore experience.