ABOUT THIS BOOK

Examines the ways Singapore’s impressive public housing program is central to the political legitimacy of the city-state’s single-party regime, and the growing contradictions of its success.

The achievement of Singapore’s national public housing program is impressive by any standard. Within a year of its first election victory in 1959, the People's Action Party began to deliver on its promises. By the 1980s, 85% of the population had been rehoused in modern flats. Now, decades later, the provision of public housing shapes Singapore's environment. The standard accounts of this remarkable transformation leave many questions unanswered, from the historical to urgent matters of current policy. Why was housing such a priority in the 1960s? How did the provision of social welfare via public housing shape Singapore's industrialization and development over the last 50 years? Looking forward, can the HDB continue to be both a source of affordable housing for young families and a mechanism for retirement savings? What will happen when 99-year leases expire?

Public Subsidy, Private Accumulation is a culmination of Chua Beng Huat's study of Singapore's public housing system, its dynamics, and the ways it functions in Singapore's politics. The book will be of interest to citizens and to scholars of the political economy of Asian development, social welfare provision, and Singapore.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Chua Beng Huat is emeritus professor in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore.

REVIEWS

"Chua Beng Huat, a sociologist at the National University of Singapore who has researched the topic for more than 30 years, offers us the best—and most definitive—work on the subject. It demonstrates how deeply embedded public housing is in Singapore’s political economy yet suggests that the factors responsible for its success may be unsustainable in the future."

— Contemporary Southeast Asia

“...This concise (150 p.) volume radically reframes the traditional narrative…. the book is, overall, of considerable significance, not just as a concise housing-policy overview by one of Singapore’s most distinguished sociologists and political scientists, but, also, as an unexpectedly sharp final critique of the political and economic foundations of the PAP governance system, highlighting not just its slow burning self-contradictions and ad-hoc policy patches, but also the existential 'time-bomb' posed by the leasehold expiry issue.”

— Architecture Beyond Europe

“Chua Beng Huat’s book has opened up space in Singapore for more discussion about its public housing system. Singapore’s public housing system is a unique case that offers useful lessons for other societies. But it is important that the Singaporean case is not treated simply as a success. Its contradictions and potential to create conflicts must also be examined. Public Subsidy / Private Accumulation sets an example in this regard. Future studies based on local fieldwork and document investigations will be critical to build on Chua’s work.”

— Southeast Asian Studies

“A welcome and definitive addition to the critical literature on urban governance.”

— Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography

“[This book] masterfully tells the history of Singapore’s system of housing provision…. It offers a compelling, accessible introduction to one of the most intriguing alternative models of housing provision, examines its current shortcomings and vulnerabilities, and, crucially, raises the urgent issue of urban inequality within a system that, for many residents, seems to operate remarkably well. In doing so, it sheds light on the troubling complexities and contradictions of Singapore’s celebrated housing model.”

— Housing, Theory and Society

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
Introduction
Chapter One: Why Singapore Prioritizes Public Housing?
Chapter Two: Current State of Housing Provision Across Different Systems
Chapter Three: The National Public Housing Program
Chapter Four: From Necessary Accommodation to Market Commodity
Chapter Five: Public Housing as Retirement Asset
Chapter Six: Residual Housing for Residual People
Chapter Seven: Politics and Public Housing Ownership: From Clients to Entitled Citizens of the State
Bibliography
Index