AMONG the deathless legacies that the great Lee Kuan Yew left to his people is the housing program for the poor people of Singapore.
In 1960, when Lee was inaugurated as prime minister, Singapore was a backwater colony of slums and its people a vast community of slum dwellers. Lee established the Housing and Development Board to replace slums and squatter settlements with apartments. Before long, he produced the desired results. Today more than 80 percent of the population lives in government housing, with 95 percent of them owning their own homes. There are no slums in Singapore.
Now comes the news from India that the country is engaged in a massive slums-redevelopment program to get rid of a shameful feature of the country’s urban centers. In Mumbai, the country’s leading banking and financial metropolis, the private sector and the city government, in a public-private partnership (PPP) program, are collaborating to redevelop their slums into first-class residential-commercial areas with full accommodation of all previous residents with proof of lawful connection to their residences at no cost to them.
And the partners are succeeding. One developer alone has rebuilt 12 slum projects, giving housing to 40,000 residents. Selling elegant units at middle-class-rich prices to compensate for the poor people’s housing cost, the developer is turning in a decent return on investment. The city government is enjoying enormous new revenues, as well as taking pride in the breathtaking skyline.
It seems that, in India, the city government gives freedom to private builders to develop slum areas of their own choice into residential-commercial areas, so long as they obtain the free consent of slum families to the transformation, and guarantee and deliver to those who have lawful connection to their residences housing units of approved dimensions at the proper time. The city sets up an administrative office to enforce requirements, as well as encourages the banks to provide liberal financing to developers.
We can do the same thing in the Philippines. It might be too much to expect the national government to do the job, floundering as it has been on its own PPP projects, but we have the right to expect city governments to take the initiative to convert their slum areas into first-class residential-commercial communities. Right now we have in mind two cities, Manila and Cebu, which can proceed along the new lines to redevelop their slums.
In Manila, think of what will be the result if the vast Tondo area encompassing everything west of Juan Luna and South of Caloocan, including the gang-ruled thickly congested port areas, is redeveloped into brand-new residential-commercial districts. We will have mixed communities of housing for professional and working people, wide roads, moderate-rise and high-rise towers, commercial establishments, banks, amusement parks and other amenities. If the communities are designed by our urban-planning professional groups, even better. The Manila City government will enjoy revenues that will boggle its imagination.
Cebu City, likewise, if it pursues its own slums-redevelopment program, at no cost to itself, will have a new look that will be pleasing to all who wish it well.
We support the redevelopment of slums through PPP and similar programs. We hope our city governments, with encouragement and support from the national government, will take up this worthy cause.
Image credits: Benjo Laygo