6 million dollar question, can life be comfortable with 6 million inhabitants ?

        

                                   
                                                           Too close for comfort ? 
 

         The recent comment by our Prime Minister during the post National Day rally, stating that Singapore could manage with 6 million people, set many people questioning the feasibility as well as the possible liveability with 6 million in our midst. 
        
      Yesterday, in our newspapers, they interviewed people from economists, gerontologists, social experts and urban planners for their views on this 6 million. 2 key points stick out, 

1. The urban population density will be raised from 12,000 per square kilometer to 14,000 per square kilometer.  That is a lot of people per square kilometer ! Singapore will have to build not only upwards (40 to 50 storey skyscrapers) as well as build downwards (perhaps 10 to 20 levels below the ground).

2.     The social expert was concerned about the human and sociological impact on people citing experiments on mice whereby 3 mice in a cage, can coexist quite harmoniously, while 10 mice will be pushing and shoving, and competing for the top of the cage for the best 'air'.
Life would be very messy and ultracompetitive. People with the big hinterland like China, USA, even Malaysia can always move to the countryside and take things easy, costs of things and life in general would be slower. For us in our city state, we would have to emigrate.

       How realistic those scenarios may be, as currently with 5.3 million inhabitants, I can only  hazard and extrapolate, we are already witnessing more unsocial and crude behavior in lifts, trains, and malls for example. 

      One key point, is that for Singapore to progress economically, if there is no further productivity from our population, then we have to import people and businesses to prop up the GDP numbers. We all want to have our salaries moving upwards 5 - 7% year on year to tide and manage inflation. So, if our people cannot move upwards and create more value added services or killer products, then we need the new people to create them for Singapore.

       True ?     

Ed's Update Mar 2025 

We officially hit 6 million inhabitants in early 2025. The roads are full, the country seems packed, but we are still doing fine.

The super aging of our society means, realistically that for Singapore to continue on its economic development model of 2 - 3 % per annum without breaking the retirement bank, we have no option but to continue to attract and keep top value people. The citizenry may complain but the consensus is that if nuclear families only have 0 or 1 children, then we need to continue to grow our society through immigration.

Painful ? Yes.

Necessary ?  (deep breath) Yes.

The flipside is to look at super aged society like Japan. They have ghost towns and ever decreasing population. There are homeless, and many young people have difficultly finding and holding on to jobs. There are many sleeping rough and relationships and family bondings are at an all time low.