Living In An Overcrowded City.

Above: A fully packed, air-conditioned, articulated "bendy" public bus night scene. Viewed from the back of the bus where I was seated, purely by luck. All seats were taken up then and the people who were standing were those who came in much later. The bus was making its way from the city centre to a residential estate on a Friday night at about 10:39 in the p.m. The bus was packed with mainly workers. Frequency for this bus on weekdays would be about 5-8 mins after 7:00p.m. I boarded the bus while it was only 1/8 of its way to the residential estate. So that perhaps explains how I got the back seat. But even then, getting a seat around that time is, like I said, purely by luck.

It has been quite tough residing once again in overcrowded Singapore. I know it is a rather paradoxical statement I have delivered here because Singapore has been home to me for the first 22 years of my life before I finally left the mother country to do some studies abroad, and that, it has been a year since I returned. But the overcrowdedness has really gone beyond my tolerable limits now that I have lived in another part of the world where personal space is more of a lifestyle than the pursuit of one’s happiness, or something of that sort, you get me?

In an almost-no-natural-resources Singapore, population growth has long outstripped its available resources. So from a glance, overcrowdedness seems a definite source to the collapse of the Singapore nation given some truth in the Thomas Malthus’ theory. However taking into account its knowledge-based economy, the country would ruin, too, considering a low or an un-increasing population. Right now, Singapore houses about 4.5 million people and aims to have about 6 million in the coming 2040.

I remember the year I left Singapore for the first time, overcrowdedness in the country seemed nowhere ‘this’ stuffed and that was only about 5 years ago. Until today, I do not know for sure, if it has terribly increased or just a psychological impact on me for having only returned from a place almost underpopulated (or, could I have simply forgotten just how overcrowded Singapore has always been, I am not too sure), but I do know that whatever feeling I may have over this overcrowdedness, is one that is backed by the Singapore population demographics such as the one below.

Above: Demographics of Singapore, Data of FAO, year 2005 ; Number of inhabitants in thousands.

Statistics have it that in the last 5 years the number of inhabitants in Singapore have increased by 0.28 million (0.28 million is purely my own estimation actually). Never mind the increase, but 0.28 million does not tell me how 'bad' the crowd has grown. Nevertheless by taking Singapore's land area into consideration, such feelings of overcrowdedness seems more than merely feelings. It is in fact a reality.

With a land area of about 704 k.m.2, Singapore is currently home to some 4.5 million people and holding a density of about 6400 persons per k.m.2 (as compared to that of 5882 persons per k.m.2 in the year 2000). A country like Australia, on the other hand, only measures up to about 2.6 persons in 1 k.m.2! So can you roughly gauge how badly overcrowded Singapore has been overtime and understand why "the overcrowdedness has really gone beyond my tolerable limits now"?

With Singapore being one of the most economically successful countries in the world, typical features of an overpopulated country may be absent nevertheless. So ‘big’ issues like the adequacy of food and water supply all seemed to be in good control. In fact, Singapore’s economic growth is so enormous that it vastly exceeded the increase in its population. However, insignificant features of its overcrowdedness such as the comfort of life that residents like me would probably be asking for in almost every other day of our lives, seemed overlooked.

Discomfort in the slightly more insignificant features of overcrowdedness in Singapore can be seen in the long queues at supermarkets, huge crowds at bus stands and forever taken cabs on the roads; the long, long journey to work, the packed buses and trains (not only during peak hours but also before and after peak hours), and the rising living costs; the homes that just keep getting smaller, the compacted blocks of flats built everywhere (see picture) and the food that are mostly genetically modified are just some of the more insignificant features of overcrowdedness that seemed to have been overlooked and that, to an extent, can sometimes be quite intolerable to the people residing in the country!

So this thus makes me wonder if I will be able to survive the country's increasing population in the coming years, which I really don't know. Already I am feeling pretty stuffed now. But since overcrowdedness is merely a “subjective evaluation”, there will never be, I guess, an optimal population level for Singapore, ever. Perhaps it is time to pack up and leave, for a place full of space, REAL food, fresh air and most importantly, less crowd!

References:

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Demographics of Singapore, Available [Online]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Singapore#Population

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, List of countries by population density, Available [Online]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density