A new town where people are handled with care

Press, 9 April 1977, Page 16

A new town where people are handled with care

NAYLOR HILLARY, of the editorial department of “The Press,” describes new-town developments he saw on a visit to Singapore. The pictures of Jurong, on the south-west coast of the island show, clockwise from above: the ,SNZ24 million Town Hall; a pagoda in the Chinese Garden; a floating restaurant at the same recreation area; and high-rise blocks of flats overlooking the garden.

“Caution. Human Beings Here. Handle With Care 1 ’ reads a sign in the grand marble concourse of the Jurong Town Hall. Jurong is regarded in Singapore as one of the success stories of the young Republic. From the Town Hall the Jurong Town Corporation manages a new, high-rise city with a population of 70,000 spread over 10,000 acres. By 1984 the population is expected to pass 300.000. To provide work the corporation has attracted 685 factories to its industrial estates. Nearly half of them are foreign multi-national firms — American. British, and West German. Japan ranks fourth in its investment in Jurong. but Japanese participation is increasing rapdily. The whole industrial city was planned with Japanese assistance; and Jurong shipyards, a joint venture between Japanese firms and the Singapore Government. is the biggest single enterprise in Jurong. Fifteen years ago the south-west coast of Singapore island — the site of the new industrial city 12 miles outside Singapore proper — was a marshy strip of coast inhabited only by a few fishermen.

The fishermen are still nearby, moved to a new marine industrial area at Tuas on the extreme western comer of Singapore where land is being reclaimed and channels dredged. The Tuas development is one of 18 smaller development projects scattered round Singapore island for which the Jurong Town Corporation also has responsibility. Space is a desperately scarce resource in the Republic of Singapore ■which must house and employ a population of more than two million people in an area no greater than Lake Taupo. Jurong Town provides one kind of answer. The Government is investing SNZ7OM a year on housing, factory sites, schools, and hospitals. The whole settlement is expected to pay for itself eventually from the lease of industrial sites and from the sale or rent of housing units. Areas still under development are bleak dustbowls, but Jurong boasts tree-lined streets in its old districts and its recreation areas include a golf course, sports fields, a spectacular bird park,

elaborately devised Chinese and Japanese gardens, and Singapore’s only drive-in theatre. When the first factories went up, workers refused to travel to Jurong. Now they are attracted by the promise of better housing and amenities than they could hope to find in the older parts of Singapore. Jurong has 20,000 housing units, 100 of them in each block and the blocks go up as high as 25 storeys. Miss Ann Lui Tee, Public Relations Officer for the Jurong corporation, said that waiting lists grew as people realised the attractions of the new city.

But Jurong’s population is out of balance. The majority of its residents are younger people, many of them with young families. Older people have been less eager to move from their traditional homes.

In some housing blocks petty crime is rife and local residents have banded together to form vigilante squads which patrol the lifts, stair-wells and corridors. Spectacular suicides from high apartments are not uncommon, but residents say the suicide rate is no worse than else-

where in the city — high rise buildings simply make suicide a much more public activity.

“Jurong is not perfect, but the advantages for Singapore and for the people who come here outweigh the disadvantages,” said Miss Ann Lui Tee. “People have to make sacrifices and adjust.”

Jurong offers open spaces, assured homes and jobs, and an attempt to separate housing areas from polluting industries. But it lacks the sense of friendly intimacy which distinguishes the older, sprawling suburbs of Singapore.

The good life can be lived in a Jurong penthouse apartment, costing about SNZ7O.OOO. But life is not so sweet in tiny two-room flats.

Some of Singapore’s neighbours — Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia — are showing interest in the Jurong experiment.

Tn the cramped conditions of Singapore there may be no alternative to developments like Jurong; in spite of its success as an industrial development, Jurong is not necessarily a model which others should be eager to adopt.