I was watching the video below about Singapore which has the world's best public housing system.
https://youtu.be/2cjPgNBNeLU
Nearly everyone in Singapore lives in affordable homes and has one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. Their system seems to be about normalising public housing such that everyone lives in it and building large apartment buildings so that there is large supply thereby bringing down costs.
Why can't Melbourne or Australia in general do something similar?
Hey, so I've read about the Singapore public housing system where every citizen is able to afford somehow an adequate apartment in Singapore with government help although prices there are one of the highest in the world.. anyone's familiar with that and how it all works? Thanks
Since the housing crisis is such a big deal right now, I was curious what others think of a citizen and permanent resident exclusive public housing apartments run by the government like Singapore's HDB system.
In a nutshell, Singaporeans by majority live in government run flats that are much cheaper then private housing there. They were built starting in the 60s to get the people out of poor fishing villages and slums in order to make the city modern and clean. Each development is like a self sustained unit, with shops and common areas, and they are ethnically mixed to avoid ghettoization. It's largely been considered an example of public housing that isn't completely crap. They are tiered and leased only, so one can work their way up to better flats as their finances improve. Though I am often doubtful of the government's abilities to run such things, I don't see why they couldn't run something similar at a profit or at least break even while keeping rents reasonable.
Naturally this would only really make sense in the big cities. I figure the younger generations would be fine with small residences as long as they could pay for it. I am sure more able bodied elderly people would appreciate it as well. It would also give more benefits to citizenship and be resistant against foreign influence in the housing market. However, Singapore had the advantage of very strong government and the fact they were basically starting from scratch in most areas, whereas Toronto and Vancouver would not have such advantages, but I suppose it's still possible.
Admittedly, I am not Singaporean nor have I even been there, but it seems like a reasonable solution to problems here even though we are very different from Singapore in so many ways.
