Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: RVtitem on July 10, 2017, 09:43:24 AM
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“SUPERCOOL you’re here,” says Eugene, looking like he means it. The young Singaporean is showing visitors around his new apartment, a three-bedroom flat in one of the city-state’s many high-rise blocks. Eugene says he and his new wife can’t wait to start filling the space with babies. He even sounds excited that his in-laws are coming to stay.
If Eugene sounds too good to be true, that’s because he’s a hologram, trapped behind glass at a self-aggrandising museum in the bowels of Singapore’s Housing & Development Board (HDB). Lots of countries show off their public-housing projects, but few are quite as devoted to them as Singapore, where four-fifths of the permanent population live in subsidised units built by the government, most of them as owner-occupiers. The city-state’s suburbs bristle with HDB towers, painted calming pastel hues.
This vast national housing system surprises visitors who think of Singapore as a low-tax hub for expatriate bankers and big multinationals. But HDB is a linchpin of economic and social policy and an anchor for the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), which has led Singapore since independence. It is also a tantalising but tricky model for Singapore’s fast-urbanising neighbours to follow.
HDB was formed in 1960, replacing a city-planning agency created by British colonialists. The agency intended at first to build rental housing for poor families, but within four years it had switched to building apartments for sale to the masses. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s prime minister from 1959 to 1990, wrote later that he thought promoting widespread home ownership would give every citizen a “stake” in the country, better knitting together an island-nation populated by ethnic Chinese, Indians and Malays. The government used its powers to acquire much of the land that was not then under its control (it now owns around 90% of Singapore’s territory), and gradually moved Singaporeans from low-slung villages into concrete high-rises.
https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21724856-subsidies-are-irresistiblebut-come-social-controls-why-80-singaporeans-live?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/why80ofsingaporeansliveingovernmentbuiltflats
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Am not a socialist but when you have 80% of the people living in slums and then turn around and call yourselves developed, its a problem. If you visited some parts of Mississippi youl want to go and live in MAthare.
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Am not a socialist but when you have 80% of the people living in slums and then turn around and call yourselves developed, its a problem. If you visited some parts of Mississippi youl want to go and live in MAthare.
How is Mississipi relevant to what is in Singapore? And I take it you have never been to Singapore. The "public housing" is generally of high standards, especially what has been built in the last 20 years, and are continually upgraded by the government. These are not the "projects" of the USA or the undesirable stuff you find in public housing in most countries (including Western). Moreover, almost all of the housing is public in name only: the occupants don't rent; the government does the building and then sells cheaply to the citizens.
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Kenya keeps benchmarking itself with these countries while doing the exact opposite of what they did.
I have just read another article on plans of cartels to sell Nairobi water company to French company after mismanagement and shelling it out www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/07/10/city-hall-under-pressure-to-shelve-alleged-nairobi-water-company-sale_c1594277?platform=hootsuite
It's commendable that singapore has done something to break ethnic enclaves typical in Nairobi eg Indians in Parklands and Chinese who are now conglomerating.
And also another predator USA company BETCHEL has set base in Nairobi. It bet it will begin to loby for massive privatisation of public services (water, roads, etc)
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RVT
This has been my position all along.
Talk to the likes of HK and Pundit and you keep hearing crap about Private capital etc. Most of the gambling that is called "Property Market" starts with the government building a majority of those properties. Then the local thieves begin to demand that they be "privatized". Once that is done the gambling starts.
The reason the bubble in Kenya remains so high is simple: Lack of public investment. The day the state gets in the provision of real housing - not this pretence of milking citizens of their cash - is the day you will begin to see some real bankruptcies and cries of "rescue" etc.
My position remains that government must end the guarantee of land or even mention of landlessness and concentrate on provision of shelter. The Right to Shelter and Income should trump all others.
Kenya keeps benchmarking itself with these countries while doing the exact opposite of what they did.
I have just read another article on plans of cartels to sell Nairobi water company to French company after mismanagement and shelling it out www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/07/10/city-hall-under-pressure-to-shelve-alleged-nairobi-water-company-sale_c1594277?platform=hootsuite
It's commendable that singapore has done something to break ethnic enclaves typical in Nairobi eg Indians in Parklands and Chinese who are now conglomerating.
And also another predator USA company BETCHEL has set base in Nairobi. It bet it will begin to loby for massive privatisation of public services (water, roads, etc)