I read with dismay that many of the unofficial greenery and kite flying areas have been re-designated for property development, be it commercial or residential buildings. The Garden City is fast becoming a concrete city.
I've written about the advantages of having rain gardens here in Singapore to reduce the flooding and I hope the authorities will look closer at creating such parks. At first glance, parks may seem to be non-essential but in the United States, it has been used successfully to control flood. When parks are designed to include stream networks, wetlands, and other low-lying areas, a city's green space system can provide numerous stormwater management benefits, including storing,carrying, and filtering storm runoff. American Forests estimates that the 187,767 acres of tree canopy in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region provides 949 million cubic feet in avoided storage of water, valued at $4.7 billion annually.
Isn't this much better than digging through all those concrete every year to ensure the flood waters are able to drain off? Won't building this green infrastructure be much more effective, and reduce the overall temperature of Singapore?
I seriously hope the authorities reconsider taking away all those green lungs of Singapore. In other countries, they have the option of traveling out of the city to less congested areas. We don't. I rather have more greenery than to see 6 million people in Singapore.
2 comments:
It's all about the GDP growth. Greenery doesn't contribute to GDP but 6 million people do. Which do you think the govt will choose?
Personally I'm disappointed with our govt's never-ending emphasis on money, money, money.
Look at the recent Man-U IPO "victory" by SGX. Man-U is riddled with $400+ mil in debt; how much return can they provide to investors? In the early years, SGX listed only financially strong companies like F&N, Robinsons, etc. These truly provide good ROI to investors. Nowadays, SGX only wants to get the glamour and take a cut off the listing, they no longer bother whether the company listed will benefit investors or not. Just look at the number of crook S-chips companies: these were rejected by HK Exchange as they are not financially sound.
MAS doesn't even step down to regulate... Sad indeed.
Like it or not, GDP growth does keep the jobless rate low.
Building green infrastructure does indirectly provide benefits to the GDP. Lower the temperature of the city, providing natural flood control and providing a green lung so that there is an area to de-stress.
The problem is the word indirectly.
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