1/24/2008
Can we afford 6.5m?
In many respects we can. But in the area of transportation, I doubt we can keep pushing further. Under the present 4.5m, we are greatly stressed. We are at the verge of erecting ERPs at every junction.
What if we have 6.5m? Cannot imagine the congestion. Now our car population is about 500,000. Add another 2m people, we can expect another 200,000 cars on the road. Then what?
Build another network of roads? The expressways, if we double it, may still look ok. It is the smaller roads that will choke up and get blocked out. There is no way one can drive out of the car park with 700,000 cars unless we are going to pay through our nose to get the car moving.
We have MRT! Even now, if we add another 10% to the commuters, the MRT will be struggling. Forget about buses on the roads.
6.5m! Still pushing it?
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8 comments:
You do not have to worry. We have our esteemed million dollars ministers to help us think about how to put 6.5m people on this island.
But, hey, Senior Lee said that only 30% to 40% of the foreign talent will be staying and the rest will just jump off from this "stepping stone". So, after the two thirds of the foreign talent left for better pastures, you will have the much needed space for the rest to come in again.
As SM Goh said before, more good years.
You cannot "force" people to emigrate to S'pore - so I see 6.5 million as a bit of a "myth". It may or may not happen. Real estate (scarce resource) would be much more expensive, and it is difficult to foretell whether or not the market (i.e. people) will be willing to pay.
If the govt gets out of the way, or runs the re-building of infra structure in (more or less) a "market oriented" fashion, the infrastructure will change to accommodate the change in population numbers. There'll be a need for more energy for e.g. Roads will be rebuilt — who knows... maybe "double decker"? And yes, the roads are likely to be priced as "user pay" (i.e. you use the roads, you pay) which IMO is an economically wise thing to do.
It is beyond any opinion of any one human or a group of humans to say what the "optimum" number of people are in a given territory. I'm sure if we could go back in time and tell our great-great grand parents that S'pore (that tax-free British East India Company trading post) has 4.5 million people at the beginning of the 21st century, it would be unimaginable to people living 150+ years ago.
look beanie, whatever reservations taht you may have on our national infrastructural developments.. pls leave it to our acclaimed planners, and you just concentrate on your hawker business alright?
ok, ok, i won't post any more. i will take a break.
There seems to be more and more "Anonymous" posters that are asking you to "shut up". An intriguing development.
Indeed. What intrigues me is the nature of these 'anonymouses' intellects (with exception of a few) - why bother to come to redbean's blog to slam him without vigourously attacking the content of his posts, and offering at least a smidgen of 'original' opinion.
IMO, this is extremely poor scholarship from the anonyMICE - again I make the proviso - with exception of a few.
actually at the most there are two here. but possibly there is only one and pretending to be two and talking to himself for support.
hi agong,
welcome to the blog. i thought i have seen your post before.
cheers.
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