Singapore
Singapore
Joel Phoon
Hey everyone!
My name is Joel and I call a sunny little red dot called Singapore home.
My journey with Youth Mayors began around the middle of 2018 when I was told of the opportunity to join the programme. It piqued my interest because, at the time, the government of Singapore was starting to roll out plans for increasing urban mobility in the country, and I was curious to find and learn more about urban development.
Some of my interests include the use of technology to make processes more sustainable and efficient, human physiology/anatomy, and writing.
Through working collaboratively with fellow Youth Mayors, I hope to give back to society and make a positive impact.
My City
Singapore is a bustling metropolis that is renowned for its role as a global financial and trade hub, boasting an estimated GDP of US$57,714.30 in 2017. With limited arable land area, the government has had to continually innovate in order to house the population – which usually comes in the form of the high-rise government subsidised apartment buildings that more than 80% of the population call home. The population is made up of people of four different ethnicities, namely: Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Eurasian. As a result of the limited land and exponential growth, the nation is currently facing a phenomenon called the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect which is putting the nation on a path towards heating up at a rate two times as fast as the rest of the world. The government is also trying to come up with more sustainable, streamlined solutions for mobility. Congestion on the roads pose a big problem, not only in the terms of efficiency but also from an environmental perspective, due to the increased pollution from the idling of motor vehicles that run on combustion engines.
Sources:
Snapshot
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Estimated Population: 5,638,700
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Population Density:7,804/km2 (20,212.3/sq mi)
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More than 80% of Singapore’s population lives in government-subsidized houses.
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Home ownership rate in Singapore is 92% (The highest in the world).
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Singapore has more than 3,000 kilometres of roads. Stretched out end to end, they would cover the distance from Singapore to Hong Kong.
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In addition to its main island, the nation of Singapore includes 63 additional islands, most of which are uninhabited.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore
https://thefactfile.org/singapore-facts/
https://worldstrides.com/blog/2017/08/11-interesting-facts-singapore/
