Home Ownership, National Stability and the New Middle Classes

• Published in: Singapore pp. 323 - 358
• Main Author: Lee, Edwin Siew Cheng
• Format: Book Chapter Reference
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 24.07.2008
• Subjects: History (general), world history; History - other areas; Teh Cheang Wan; Housing and Development Board (HDB); Chinese-educated; Yeo Ning Hong; Zhu Jiao Centre; law of acquisition; second industrial revolution; Toh Chin Chye; Seow Peck Leng; Tan, Augustine; Seow, Timothy; estate duties planning for; middle-income groups housing issues; public housing; People's Park Complex; property tax concession to owner occupants; residential districts; British military provider of housing; new towns establishment of; social mobility rapid; Arab; emergency one-room flats; Barker, E.W; property slump; DBS Realty; nuclear family; Ong Pang Boon; Gateway design by I.M. Pei; lower-income groups housing issues; Rochore area; elites; Marine Parade HDB estate on prime land; Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT); Lee Kuan Yew; Ong Eng Guan; property restriction on foreign ownership; Goh Keng Swee; housing; Urban Redevelopment Authority; Monetary Authority of Singapore measures to help banks; Telok Ayer Market national monument; private developers; home-ownership; Lim Chong Yah; land acquisition by government; National Wages Council (NWC); colonial era residential districts according to race; Home Ownership for the People scheme; post-war baby boomers; fate of; middle class; Housing and Urban Development Company (HUDC); Goh Chok Tong; extended family scheme for parent-children joint balloting for HDB flats; Enright, D.J; Lim Kim San; Sia Kah Hui; National Ideology; Ang, John; property speculators; Lai Tha Chai; family income ceiling purchase of HDB flats; property boom; executive apartments; Dillingham Corporation; Home Ownership Scheme CPF funds; property prices; PAP Government; capital gains tax proposal for; Cashin, H.E; Singapore Land and Housing Developers' Association; Central Provident Fund; property investors; wage reform

One way of approaching the residential districts of the different races and classes of people in Singapore in the colonial era is to note the location of the fresh produce markets. The Orchard Road Market, and next to it, the grocery and frozen meat store, the Cold Storage, and the Grange Road Market in the Tanglin area, served the British ruling elite and the commercial elite, both European and Asian. These elites lived in districts later prosaically numbered 9, 10, and 11, in fine brick and stucco houses with trees, flower beds, lawns, hedgerows, and parks. Nearby were the Botanic Gardens and the University of Malaya/Singapore. The campus was composed of plain arched cloisters enclosing an upper and a lower quadrangle datable to 1929, flanked by buildings of 1950s and 60s origin, the whole dissonant assemblage softened by the leafy landscape around it.The Asian masses resided in a separate zone, another world altogether, and obtained their daily provisions from one of the great markets in their part of town, namely, the Telok Ayer Market, Maxwell Road Market, People's Park Market, Ellenborough Market, all four in Chinatown, the Clyde Terrace Market in Beach Road, and the Kandang Kerbau Market in the Serangoon area, later depicted as Little India.Since independence, all but one of these markets, the Maxwell Road one, have disappeared, swallowed by the urge to modernize and redevelop the city state. This is another reason for taking notice of the humble, but landmark-evoking fresh produce markets. It serves as a reminder of how things had changed and progressed, and of how quickly it had all happened after independence.In what was the first of its kind in Singapore and the region, a shopping mall piled high with multi-storey offices and flats, was built in Singapore between 1970 and 1973. This was the People's Park Complex, erected on the site of the People's Park Market. The Telok Ayer Market, its original function over, is preserved as a national monument on account of its history and ornate wrought iron structure.The Clyde Terrace Market was absorbed into the site, mostly reclaimed from the sea, of the knife-edged twin towers of I.M Pei, known as the Gateway. The Kandang Kerbau Market too has gone.