It's funny: over in the comments about a healthcare article they say that Singapore has it easier because it's smaller. And here we admire them for pulling things off despite being small.
I didnt read those comments, but large capital projects one would think is harder, since they collect less overall revenue. For example its hard to imagine singapore sending a person to mars, over say China or US
other things, especially people related, are much easier. its very close together, very homogeneous, etc.
Uhh, Singapore is very far from homogeneous. There are Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, over a million expats from all countries and in all social classes and four official languages to cater to them all.
Haha this reminds me of when I lived and worked in Singapore and an Andersen consultant flew in from Kansas to "help us out". His first complaint was that there was nowhere to eat! That was so stupid I couldn't respond, since there is more culinary variety in Singapore than anywhere else I've ever been, but eventually I figured out that he wasn't able to eat anywhere besides a steakhouse, which establishments are common in Kansas. (Of course he could have found one if he had looked hard enough, although fair warning on the unpalatable Australian beef, but instead he got in some sort of sensitivity trouble and flew back home...)
> although fair warning on the unpalatable Australian beef
Is Australian beef unpalatable? It all depends on the cut and the grade, of course; but, buying good quality beef here in Australia, comparing it to beef I've tasted in restaurants in the US, it tastes just as good.
Maybe the stuff we export to Singapore isn't that good. Or maybe higher prices push people towards the lower quality stuff.
Really good beef is expensive in Singapore, and the locals don't have that much of a culture steak. So there's a bunch of bad restaurants for western expats, and some very high end ones.
> His first complaint was that there was nowhere to eat
Ha, that's funny. I was in Singapore for 3 months for an internship, and decided to start eating meat to maximize enjoyment at the awesome food courts in Singapore.
Eh? Australian beef is decent to excellent from my experiences there. Norwegian beef, on the other hand, tends to range from garbage to edible, unless you want to pay >$30 for enough meat for one person to cook at home. And that's if you're lucky and they have anything that has been properly aged.
Being small definitely has its pros and cons, but consider that Singapore is a City-State in the same size class as Chicago (by Area, and actually a bit bigger) and the same population class as say Colorado or Norway (5 millionish give or take) and only one tier of government, the National tier.
They definitely lack natural resources and their tax base is that of a small country, but they don't have the usual 2-3 tiers of administrative overhead, the government is closer to the authoritarian end and any large capital projects they do undertake are largely going to benefit everyone to some degree simply because of how tight the nation is. Also being a nation that is one city does wonders for focusing on the habitability of that one city, and there's no other cities to compete for tax dollars there.
