Someone just proposed having a village for all singles in S’pore and it got viral

Last Updated on 2016-05-19 , 1:43 pm

The birth rate in Singapore is low and our government has been actively persuading singles to get married and couples to give birth. So far, the government has been coming up with all sorts of measures to increase our birth rate such as implementing baby bonus, SG50 freebies and subsidies for childcare services for working mums.

Of course despite all these measures, our fertility rate remains stagnant and a recent survey indicated that “more young people staying single”, something that is, honestly, pretty worrying.

Now, this article isn’t written to discuss about the merits of baby bonuses or find ways to solve the low birth rates in Singapore. We leave that to the smarter people out there on the net and IRL. Instead, we wanted to talk about this letter that was published on Straits Times.

The author of the letter suggested an initiative that seems to be pretty ridiculous – getting all the singles in Singapore to stay together in a “single village”.

The community will be made up of singles and each person has to pay a very small rent to stay in the “village”. Discounting the fact that this idea is getting dangerously close to sensitive topics like segregation (which we’re not going to talk about), this is what he suggested:

Cheap rates
Offer these housings for cheap rates to singles, which is pretty valid, considering that in Singapore, you’re only eligible for public housing if you’re married or 35 years old. And to show that he thought of everything, he stated that the duration of rent for each person can only be two years at most, so that the system will not be abused by those looking for cheap housing.

Sounds good so far, right?

Uncomfortable house
He stated in his letter that the units must be small or shoe-boxed size so that people will not be too comfortable living there. Question is, if you know you’re paying rent for units that isn’t meant to be comfortable, would you want to do so? The only way we see this happening is if the authorities enforces this and force all singles to stay in the “single village”.

No WiFi or TV
He suggested WiFi and televisions should not be allowed in homes of the community, forcing residents to congregate at the community halls instead. Activities and events can be organized either on a daily basis or weekends to force people into social situation and meet more people.

Question is, if this initiative comes through, would you want to stay there?

To be fair, even if the idea suggested sounds a tad bit ridiculous, it has a few points for us to learn from.

Our fast pace of life and hectic work schedule, which is legendary in the world, is causing our youths to miss out their social life, committing their time to work and rest instead. Even on weekends, these same young adults will not have the energy to drag themselves out of the house to socialize and instead, snooze in their beds.

So, “singles village”, yay or nay?

Top Image: LOFTFLOW / Shutterstock.com