Since border control measures between Singapore and Malaysia were relaxed in April, over a million people have crossed the Causeway, particularly Malaysians making the long anticipated trip home to be with family.  But to the consternation of many homeowners and buyers in Singapore, these Malaysian workers and tradesmen, who make up an essential part of…

It has been said that the true measure of any society’s development lies in its people’s quality of life. Weak or able, poor or rich — how free are people to make choices that are both productive and fulfilling?  In 1967, after over a decade of terminal care research and medical social work, Dame Cicely…

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN UPDATED ON 28 DEC 2021 With Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats increasingly fetching seven-figure sums today, the idea of affordable public housing has blurred for many. Just a few weeks ago, a five-room flat in Bishan was sold for a record $1.36 million. It was only 70 years ago that…

They say technology is only as good as how much money and time it can save humankind. Whenever tech-enabled solutions replace less sophisticated ones, the reason is seldom a love of tech but more about our addiction to cost savings. This tendency explains so many of the decisions that were made in the name of…

Thumbing through old sepia photographs of Sin Nam Huat, a traditional provision shop nestled in the old estate of Toa Payoh North, 60-year-old Ong Kok Chee recalls some of the best times of his childhood and young adult life with the same fervour one might see in a twenty-first century ‘Bitcoin bro’.  Pointing to a…

In 2021, calls for the government to outlaw the ferrying of migrant workers in the back of lorries came after three accidents in the span of two months and two lives were claimed.  This was not the first time such attention was brought up. The same issue was initially brought up twelve years ago, but…

As a generation that has been subjected to all manner of criticisms — think lazy, disrespectful, overconfident, spoiled, snowflakes, strawberries, and now, cheugy — Millennials the world over have had it pretty rough.  Many have been told they don’t work hard enough by the generations before them, but also that they sometimes try too hard…

Towards the end of the 2019 Netflix documentary American Factory, the Chinese billionaire entrepreneur Cao Dewang reflected upon his life as he strolled pensively around what looked like a massive shrine dedicated to himself. Amid doubts that his glass empire had done more good than harm for society came one of many maxims that seem…