$Unique_ID{COW03162} $Pretitle{384} $Title{Singapore Chapter 2A. Geography, Population, and Labor Force} $Subtitle{} $Author{Nena Vreeland} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{singapore water island miles city industrial percent facilities population government} $Date{1976} $Log{} Country: Singapore Book: Singapore, A Country Study Author: Nena Vreeland Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1976 Chapter 2A. Geography, Population, and Labor Force Singapore has only two natural resources: its position and its people. It owes the presence of its people almost entirely to its strategic position athwart the narrowest point of passage between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Recognizing the favorability of this location and of the excellent natural harbor for the establishment of an entreport and trading center, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded the city in 1819 and began a process that swelled the island's population from 150 then to over 2.3 million in 1976. Until the 1930s the population and the city grew in a more or less uncontrolled fashion as large numbers of Chinese, Malay, and Indian immigrants came in search of economic opportunity. Until 1960 the city was characterized by grossly overcrowded slums with poor sanitary conditions and by a population reproducing so quickly that the island seemed destined to sink beneath a mass of humanity. Yet by the mid-1970s Singapore's population had one of the highest standards of living in Asia and life expectancies that rivaled those of the West, and half of its people were housed in new apartments that-though spartan and overcrowded by Western standards-were a great improvement over the squalor the people had left behind. More significant and more impressive, Singapore had become the first Asian country to bring its population growth under control and had realized the distinct possibility of achieving a zero growth rate within the next few decades. Singapore was a nation approaching demographic stability. One factor more than all others was responsible for the dramatic change in the island's demography: government planning and initiative. The tight grip of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's one-party government must be given most of the credit for achieving population control and changing the living patterns of the country. Singaporean planners, whether in birth control or in housing, have created programs that seem to be based on an intimate and comprehensive knowledge of the people's condition and the direction of change. Policies are almost always made in the context of long-range goals and, once arrived at, brook no half measures. Goals are generally realistic and thus are often exceeded. Once a policy has been decided on, the government will tolerate little opposition in achieving it. Fortunately for Singaporeans, these tactics succeeded during the first fifteen years of Lee's rule. But Singapore's successes with these policies have not been unmixed. Despite the loss of its hinterland when the city was served from Malaysia in 1965 and despite relatively high unemployment during a slump in world trade in the late 1960s, the growing labor force has been accommodated. But it has been accommodated at the expense of tens of thousands of resident aliens whose working permits have been extended and withdrawn according to the vagaries of the labor market. The labor force, though literate and well disciplined, has a severe shortage of skilled technicians, a tribute to the population's preference for academic learning and office jobs. The housing program too seemed in danger of creating high-rise class ghettos as ethnic neighborhoods gave way to housing developments. GEOGRAPHY Topography Singapore owes its growth and its importance in Southeast Asia to its geographic position rather than to the natural resources of the land. The entire country is slightly more than 230 square miles in size, an area roughly equivalent to that of Chicago. Almost all of the land area is on the single island of Singapore; about fifteen square miles are taken up by fifty-four islets, fewer than half of which are inhabited and the largest of which, Pulau Tekong Besar, is less than seven square miles (see fig. 1). The city of Singapore has an area of 37.6 square miles, a somewhat misleading figure because large areas outside the city limits are heavily urbanized as well. The main island is roughly diamond shaped and is about twenty-six miles from east to west and fourteen miles from north to south. Land reclamation has added almost six square miles to the total territory since 1966, mostly along the southeast coast. Singapore is separated by the Johore Strait from the mainland and Malaysia's state of Johor-to which it is connected at the narrowest point of the strait by a causeway seven-tenths of a mile long-and is separated from Indonesia's Pulau Batam and lesser islets by the Singapore Strait where it debouches into the Strait of Malacca-less than five miles wide at its narrowest point. Indonesia and Malaysia hold that the Strait of Malacca and the Singapore Strait fall within the twelve-mile limit of territorial waters and thus are not international waterways. Singapore, whose position as an entrepot depends on the free passage of international shipping through these waters, maintains the international character of the waterway. The islands are generally flat and low lying. There is a hilly area in the center of the main island; the highest point, Bukit Timah (Tin Hill), is a little less than 581 feet above sea level. The topography of the southwestern part of the island is varied by a series of short cliffs and shallow valleys formed of sedimentary rock. Coastal waters are generally less than 100 feet deep. The island is drained by several short rivers, streams, and drainage canals, principally the Singapore, Jurong, Kalang, Kranji, Seletar, and Serangoon rivers. The longest of these, the Seletar River, is only about nine miles long. Originally the island was mostly covered with forests and mangrove swamps. Beginning in the early nineteenth century much of the forestland was cleared, and many of the marshes and swamps were filled in and reclaimed; in 1975 less than 11 percent of the country was considered forested or tidal marsh, although another 38 percent was classified as arable waste or other (which includes open spaces, public gardens, cemeteries, and the like). Efforts at land reclamation have continued into the mid-1970s, a principal example being the draining and filling of the formerly swampy basin of the Kalang River in the eastern part of the city, to be used for industrial, commercial, and residential purposes. Most rivers and drainage canals are polluted by industrial effluvia, sewage, and trash. The government has undertaken a serious effort to reverse these conditions, but the density of the population and a sewage system that dates back to the late nineteenth century make the task difficult. Climate Located less than 2 degrees north of the equator, Singapore has a tropical climate of uniformly high temperature and humidity throughout the year. Average temperatures fall within a six-degree range around 84.2F, although temperatures as high as 94.6F and as low as 67.3F have been recorded since the mid-1970s. Relative humidity at 1:30 P.M. averages 72 percent, but the effects of high temperatures and humidity are largely moderated by sea breezes. Rainfall averages 86.8 inches annually and is fairly evenly distributed. Roughly half of the days each year are rainy. The greatest variations in weather are marked by the two monsoons; prevailing winds come out of the northeast between November and March and out of the southwest between May and September. The southwest monsoon is usually accompanied by squalls known as sumatras, which are sometimes violent and have had winds as high as sixty-four miles per hour. High tides and heavy rains combining during the northeast monsoon may result in serious flooding, particularly disastrous in the densely populated Kampong Ubi area near Singapore International Airport. Flood control projects have been completed or are planned in the Tanglin district, in Kampong Ubi, and elsewhere on the island. Land Use The need for comprehensive and long-range planning in land use is apparent in a country as compact and densely populated as Singapore. The government has formulated plans for land use into the next century. The most spectacular examples of planned development have taken shape in the urban renewal and housing projects and in the creation of Jurong and other industrial estates designed to be self-contained industrial, commercial, and residential units. Planners have also begun to look to the larger offshore islands as sites for additional housing or industrial development. Two sites in the island group south of Jurong and one on Pulau Bukum were devoted to oil refineries and their attendant facilities, thus keeping air pollutants away from populated areas. The two large islands at the eastern end of the Johore Strait-Pulau Ubin and Pulau Tekong Besar-may also be used in the future for industrial and residential purposes on the model of Jurong. As of 1975 over 38 percent of Singapore's territory was built up, and another 13 percent was being used for agriculture (see fig. 2). Considerable land was still available for development but, as with Jurong and similar industrial estates, considerable reclamation work would be necessary first. A need to preserve open spaces, parkland, nature reserves, and water catchment areas has been recognized by the government in the formation of two nature reserves-one preserving a forest and the other preserving a mangrove swamp. In addition to a botanical garden and a bird park, there are twenty-five recreation parks and a number of beaches-including one called Coney Island-maintained by the Ministry of Environment. Water, Sanitation, and Environmental Quality One of the most traumatic experiences in Singapore's history-its fall to the Japanese in 1942-was hastened when the invaders shut off the city's water supply from the mainland; Singapore's continued dependence on neighboring Malaysia for most of its water remains a factor contributing to feelings of insecurity. Most of the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in the center of the island is devoted to water catchment and retention. Three large reservoirs have a retention capacity of somewhat less than 11 billion gallons-enough to last the city for two or three months at usual rates of consumption. Projects for enlarging the capacity of the reservoirs to 15 billion gallons were scheduled for completion in late 1976. Although water rationing measures had proved effective in the past, before the completion of these projects Singapore relied on Malaysia's state of Johor for roughly 70 percent of its water supply. Water, piped in along the causeway connecting Johor Baharu and Singapore, is ensured on the basis of a twenty-five-year agreement reached in the early 1960s. Singapore contributes significantly to the Johor economy through investments, royalties, and rents on catchment areas and is also responsible for supplying Johor Baharu (which accounts for the disposal of 10 percent of Singapore's water consumption). The fact that Singapore has managed to turn a profit in doing so has created some resentment on the part of the Malaysians. Forty-five percent of the total water consumption of Singapore in 1975 was used for domestic consumption; the proportion of the water supply used by commerce and industry increased significantly between 1965 and 1975 to over 30 percent of total consumption-a measure of the increasing industrialization of the Singaporean economy. Increases in population and industrialization have resulted in greater water consumption-about 132 million gallons per day in 1974-and have placed an added strain on the somewhat antiquated sewage system. The entire sewage and water treatment system was being expanded and modernized in the mid-1970s; three new treatment plants had been built, and three more were planned within the decade. The government plans to spend $250 million (for value of the Singapore dollar-see Glossary) on improving sewage and water treatment facilities between 1974 and 1979. Although most of the population, including the half that lives in public housing estates, is served by the sewage system, much of the rest uses septic tanks. The government requires all new buildings to have modern sewage facilities so that, as urban renewal and development proceed, the sanitation system will continue to be modernized. Additional government activities designed to reduce public health hazards include a program to move street food vendors into permanent facilities that are provided with piped water and sanitary sewers and are subject to inspection. Disposal of solid wastes-an estimated 1,780 tons per day in 1975-was accomplished entirely by landfill dumping; a new incinerator capable of burning most solid wastes was under construction in 1976. The increasing industrialization of the economy has not been without its ill effects on the environment. Aside from long-standing problems of water pollution, air pollution has become a problem sufficiently serious to require remedial action. The Anti-Pollution Unit was created in the Prime Minister's Office in 1970, and three ordinances were passed between 1971 and 1973 establishing emission standards and prohibiting the burning of industrial wastes. New industries with a high potential for air pollution are to be located away from housing estates and equipped with control devices. Existing industries have also begun to install these devices. The most serious industrial polluter has been the lumber processing industry, and a concentration of these plants in the northern end of the island is contemplated. Motor vehicle exhausts are the greatest single source of air pollution; drivers of vehicles giving off excessive fumes are liable to stiff fines, but the increasing number of automobiles in the city makes this a difficult problem to solve. Singapore is fortunate, however, in that the frequent rainfall and breezes that characterize its climate generally keep pollutants from concentrating frequently or at dangerously high levels. Man-Made Features The man-made features most important to the economic life of the island are the port facilities at Singapore, Jurong, Sembawang, and Pasir Panjang Village. Taken together and in terms of shipping tonnage, the ports of Singapore are the fourth busiest in the world. Singapore's position astride the entrance to the Strait of Malacca, the busiest sea-lane in Asia, was the initial reason for the founding of the city by Raffles early in the nineteenth century and-although Singapore has shifted its economic role somewhat from that of a simple entrepot to a greater emphasis on manufacturing-transshipping, ship servicing, and partial processing of shipped materials remain important economic activities (see ch. 3; ch. 7). Less than 3,500 miles from Yokohama and less than 2,000 miles from Calcutta, Singapore is in an ideal position to facilitate shipments by sea from South and West Asia to East Asia and from Southeast Asia to the rest of the world. A large proportion of the freight tonnage discharged in Singapore-about 60 percent in 1975-was petroleum from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Aden, most of which was destined for Japan, underlining Japan's interest in maintaining the status of the strait as an international waterway. Much of the oil was refined in Singapore before transshipment. Control over port facilities and navigation in port waters is vested in the Port of Singapore Authority. Over 20,000 vessels of seventy-five tons or heavier entered and cleared the ports of Singapore in 1975, almost twice as many as ten years earlier. The largest and most comprehensive port facilities were located in the vicinity of the city of Singapore proper. The Keppel Wharves, located in protected waters between the main island and Sentosa, are three miles long and can handle up to thirty-one vessels at one time. They are deepwater wharves and can accommodate the largest oceangoing ships. The nearby Port of Singapore Authority Container Terminal is designed to handle containerized freight; facilities were improved and expanded in 1974. The Telok Ayer Basin, located between the Keppel Wharves and the city center, berths vessels of shallower draft carrying industrial cargoes. Jurong, the newly developed industrial city on the southwest coast, has its own port facilities, used mainly for handling bulk cargoes, such as cement, potash, and grains. Sembawang, located at a former British naval base at the northern end of the island, is used mainly for the export of rubber and timber from Malaysia. Major port facilities were inaugurated in 1974 at Pasir Panjang Village on the southwest coast. They are especially suited for handling lighter aboard-ship vessels. Other man-made features relating to transportation include two major airports, railroad lines running from the causeway to Singapore and Jurong with an additional spur to Sembawang, and more than 1,300 miles of roads, over 80 percent of which are paved. The causeway linking Singapore with the mainland carries motor vehicles and rail traffic as well as water pipelines. It is jointly operated by Singapore and Malaysia.