Tomorrow's Cities: Singapore's plans for a smart nation | Hacker News Reader

Tomorrow's Cities: Singapore's plans for a smart nation

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75 pointsValentineC96 comments

One big improvement they have had is just getting air-con in the bus terminuses and hubs. Even in January any time outside means dripping sweat. They used to be open-air.

Rather then the government lead (and miss) why not have the government act more as an even-distributor of things which are already gaining traction.

Years ago during Japan's go-go years, they have renderings and future plans for completely redesigned megacities made up of multiple semi-self-contained smaller hyper integrated neighborhoods --sometimes a neighborhood would be gigantic pyramidal buildings of capable of being self-sustaining in terms of labor, housing, recreation, food production, etc. but then the economy tanked and pop growth flatlined and we have relative slow decline and forgotten are those grand dreams of the future.

> a neighborhood would be gigantic pyramidal buildings of capable of being self-sustaining in terms of labor, housing, recreation, food production, etc. but then the economy tanked and pop growth flatlined and we have relative slow decline and forgotten are those grand dreams of the future.

Those were a fantasy, though, surely. I doubt we could make such structures (I think sometimes called arcologies?) work with todays technology, even if we had the resources and no regulatory hurdles. Maybe in a hundred years...

You sort of have a small version in the Orchard Road stretch. You could conceivably live above ION Orchard, go to work in your Takashimaya office, eat at an ultra cheap Lucky Plaza eatery or blow $300 at Les Amis at Shaw Centre, shop and exercise in any of the buildings in between, and never be exposed to the outside whilst living quite a comfortable life. Same at Vivocity, Raffles Place, Suntec/Promenade/Esplanade...

If you're living above ION then I doubt you need to scrimp by eating at Lucky Plaza...

When I stay in jakarta it's a similar feeling. A common pattern is an "anchor" mall with apartments and office buildings adjacent and in theory you could just stay inside the complex the whole time. GI/PI and Senayan Square come to mind. You could just build a dome over SS (and being jakarta, i wish they would..)

You would be amazed at the number of billionaires ambulating Singapore malls in Uniqlo T-shirts (bought on sale, naturally)... and how non-transparent and varied rent can be even in the same building: a flatshare I stayed in used to pay $4.5k/month whilst the American expat next door paid $9.5k/month for the exact same apartment!

That being said Lucky Plaza food is pretty bad, I only included it because of the underground walkway that theoretically "joins" it to the Orchard complex. Since it is technically my neighbourhood, I usually prefer going to ION's B4 food court or Wisma. But Lucky Plaza does have Iris, AFAIK the only true bespoke tailor in a building riddled with the "overnight Batam job for $200" types, so an ION resident could be coming over to check on his Loro Piana cashmere dinner jacket's progress.

I think Suntec is the one that shocked me the most when I first arrived, I got lost around the (now defunct) bowling place enough times to systematically use Google Maps until I learnt the corridors, because they don't meet at right angles. It's kind of amazing to have to think in 3D when you are used to navigating 2D streets...

> You would be amazed at the number of billionaires ambulating Singapore malls

Oooohh no I wouldn't...

> Uniqlo T-shirts

You think money grows on trees? Fake calvin klein from a bali outlet store. The PP watch is real though (and is one of 10).

Doesn't surprised me about the rent. And the apartment next door is probably empty and has been for years...

Agreed on ION B4, especially since its on the way to Jasons and MUJI, the main reasons I'd be in ION, and it has a Boost!

Cheers for the tip on Iris. I actually do need some tailoring (not Loro Piana) and the excess of choice had been intimidating.

> I think Suntec is the one that shocked me the most when I first arrived, I got lost around the (now defunct) bowling place enough times to systematically use Google Maps until I learnt the corridors, because they don't meet at right angles.

Suntec City or Marina Square? I don't recall a bowling alley ever being in Suntec.

In fact, apart from the rather confusing East/North/West wings used to refer to the various sections of Suntec, I find it quite straightforward as it's a straight path. Marina Square, on the other hand, is the mall with way too many corridors.

Yes, Marina Square. I usually enter at City Hall and emerge at Suntec (there used to be a great Vietnamese crab and tomato soup on the 2nd floor of one of the towers, in the days of Carrefour), and so much stuff is called Marina around there... it just ended up being "Suntec" in my mind. That being said remembering which escalator to take out of the Fountain of Wealth was confusing until I remembered it was next to Entrecote.

The bowling alley itself was easy to find, but trying to get back out, I always ended up in the overground footpaths to the Ritz. Where it gets really special is when the F1 is on, at which point none of the ground level options apply and you need to reroute vertically. This is how I discovered some of the hidden rooftops: there is a line of Thai and Japanese restaurants out of the second floor of one of the Suntec towers, on the roof with trees and a pond.

It is, though, much easier to navigate than similar 3D areas in Tokyo or Osaka; in particular despite having been there over 30 times I still get lost in Tokyo Station, once emerging a full mile east of the track. I am sure the maps make sense if you are Japanese...

> That being said Lucky Plaza food is pretty bad

What? The Ayam Penyets are nice.

While living in Bangkok I did exactly this. I lived in Siam and could spend all day mall hopping

You're right they are arcology. Here is one[1] of the examples, among many others they had. And another one[2]. Surely they relied on a bit of fantasy in the way that architects always seem to know what people want (but usually don't) and future availability of materials which would allow the construction of such visions.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimizu_Mega-City_Pyramid

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_City_1000

Comparing that to the aircon in the buses... Getting soaking wet while hiking in MacRitchie, no problem. Riding the bus home and fearing to catch a cold because it feels like European winter with shorts and a wet shirt.. not fun.

I used to hike/run MacRitchie every weekend or other weekend, the full 16km. The trick is to bring a spare T-shirt in a plastic freezer bag (press before sealing to remove all the air). When you get back to the Mushroom Cafe, remove your soaked T-shirt and put on the dry one. I think it ranks with the first coffee of the morning in life's greatest small pleasures.

> "Singapore's way of doing things is that the government leads, then others follow," he told me. "This might be a problem - it is too centralised and so it may take too long for plans to trickle down.

Thus far, this economic model has well helped Singapore keep up with the times—though often not the first mover, Singapore is a consistent adopter of technologies just as they go mainstream. (c.f. NFC in public transport, sustainable architecture, smartphones, optical fibre)

But given the region's diverse business climates, I wonder if the more usual decentralized approach makes sense for most verticals for the region. Without significant expertise and infrastructure in localizing across the region, the SAM for any new product or service seems to be sufficiently small that technological improvements in most markets do not scale great enough to offset R&D costs and other fixed-cost risks for the potential margins to be enticing to investors.

Is anyone here working out in Sg? How is the tech scene there? Are salaries still low wrt the rest of the world for engineers?

If your job requires you to be there, in face-to-face spitting style, then your job is not about being creative, and then you won't make it anyway, because you will be replaced by either a cheaper migrant worker or else your job will be automated into oblivion. If your job does not require you to be there, in that case, why would you actually care that "smart nation" can only be bullshit? You can perfectly well NOT care from Bangkok or Auckland. You do NOT need to be there in order NOT to care. You can do that from anywhere.

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