Running out of space now matter what

Sitting at my office in MBFC and enjoying the vast expanse of the sea and the marina gives me a very strange feeling. The very spot where I was sitting was the sea, nearly a kilometer from the former shore line at ‘Ang Teng’ or Clifford Pier. And looking ahead, there is another kilometer or more of reclaimed land before the new coastline. So much land has been added but will never be enough.

Practically every piece of the new land created is now occupied, built up or in the process of development. Instead of creating more land for recreation, to improve the life of the people, oh yes, the development for economic reasons is also to improve the people’s life, the new land are being filled up and used up immediately. And soon people will be demanding for more land.

If we don’t kill the idea of putting more people on this island, no amount of land reclamation will be enough. Even building a few more Towers of Babel will not be enough. We are small, very small, a speck as far as land is concerned. 

There is a serious need to rethink on what we should do with the lives of the citizens and the limited land that we have. It cannot keep going on like this and thinking that it can go on and on. There is a heavy price to pay for going down this road. Why keep creating space only to fill them up with more people? We would never even be bigger than Bintan. We need to be very prudent in the use of our land. And the last thing, to bring in more people to occupy them.

Saw an Army recruitment advertisement in the ST this morning. It has this flashed, ‘How far would you go to protect our home?’ Do we need to protect our home when it is occupied and stuffed with foreigners, many with new pink ICs? Wait for the day when Sinkies would have to rent a place to sleep from foreigners and foreigners turned citizens.

Maybe this would not happen as many foreigners are buying the properties and accepting the pink ICs temporarily. They would sell the properties back to the Sinkies at a high profit before returning or departing to somewhere else. Only daft Sinkies have to grab a home at whatever price to put a roof over their heads.