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9/01/2007
Geylang is an example of the future to come
Geylang is now full of buzz. It has a new life of its own, exciting, hot, cosmopolitan, a corner that comes to life at night. More exciting than Clark Quay.
Along the two sides of the main roads you have restaurants buzzling with customers. Go to the side roads you have hawkers and customers of a different kind. The customers are Singaporeans and foreigners. More foreigners than locals. The service providers, operators, including the restaurant owners, are mainly foreigners. The only thing local is the landlords. A large number of the business units have been rented out to foreign operators. And the landlords are very happy with the arrangement. They are reaping good returns for their properties without having to sweat.
Is this what Singapore will become eventually on an island wide scale where Singaporeans are paid as landlords, the property owners, and the foreigners run the business, pay the rentals and make the profits? It is quite a life for the gentry and property owning class, no longer have to work but to enjoy the good life.
If this be the case, it must surely be the first sign of decadence when the productive juice is no longer being pumped. Soon the properties will also be bought by the foreigners.
Geylang is still owned and operated by locals who have been there for years, the foreigners are usually workers for their local boss. If foreigners appear to dominate the side roads, it is becos they are better cooks and the customers love their food. Singaporeans on the other hand are lazy cooks who fall asleepy on the woks while daydreaming abt the shortcuts to great culinary success. Foreign syndicates have not invested in geylang in a big way this property cycle becos of the sleaze and sluts of the place.
ReplyDeleteGeylang can be transformed into a prime district IF the dirty business are shifted to the border to complement the low life activities across the causeway when their IDR opens.
ReplyDeleteQUOTE: Is this what Singapore will become eventually on an island wide scale where Singaporeans are paid as landlords, the property owners, and the foreigners run the business, pay the rentals and make the profits?
ReplyDeleteI dun see what's wrong with that, this is what free market is all about. Then what do you suggest, protect/nationalise the loss making business?
QUOTE: If this be the case, it must surely be the first sign of decadence when the productive juice is no longer being pumped. Soon the properties will also be bought by the foreigners.
What is your point? Disallow foreigners from doing business or buying properties?
you should visit some of the restaurants in geylang, enjoy a meal and find out who are the operators. everyone inside the restaurant is a foreigner or maybe new prs.
ReplyDeletewhat is wrong if all the good properties are bought by foreigners? with only 6-700 sq km, it is a breeze to buy up everything. we are not australia or the usa or even malaysia where land is plentiful.
once we lose all our land and control over them, we had it. at best, singaporeans will be abandoned to the peripheral of the city and prime land/properties. of course the super rich could still rub shoulders with the rich foreigners.
a day may come when poor singaporeans visiting town or the posh entertainment spots would be chased out. 'out, you poor singaporeans' in our own country.
ReplyDeletesimply because most singaporeans would not be able to afford it. the first sign of this will come in the two IRs.
unless you are those who can say, 'what is $10 mil?'
A day may come....
ReplyDeleteSingapore is a 'City of Possibilities'
In this place where everyone sense of caution and alertness are heightened, the feeling of safety and calm is unbelievably strong. It is a well oiled place where its best and brightest are not restaurant owners but syndicates in charge of the districts and the whole ranks of middlemen and pimps who dun work as hard as real estate agents when plying the streets with their clients. It is a mini united nations with just abt evry damn thing there and where big money are siphoned evry split seconds to build dreams back home or repay past follies. A place where birds of the same feathers gather together to talk cock over meals at the endless rows of fine dining restaurants which line the main street, take deserts comfortably in the crowded back streets or sing-a-long with the evrything-can-do mamasans at the karoke bars across the side street. So much beat and buzz goes on at Geylang today, that it wud hardly surprised anyone shud street smarts investors from Bintan to Patpong and Macau launch their M&A activities there to challenge sands@marinabay and resortsworld@sentosa to be the country's premier paradise destination. That when it happens will be a massive endorsement of investors' confidence and faith in Singapore's number one address which beats investing in IDR anyday.
ReplyDeletethere is enterprise among the not so talented. the hungry will find their way to survive.
ReplyDeletethe hungry are not the singaporeans.
The LEGALISED commercial sex trade in Geylang is to be shifted to the west coast (Jurong area).
ReplyDeleteBut don't believe everything you read on the net ;-)