When it comes to policymaking, the Government needs to consciously make decisions not just by listening to the people, but to also source widely for opinions, Singapore’s former chief architect Liu Thai Ker said. Raising an example from his 20-year experience in HDB, which began in 1969, the former HDB head told of how residents would ask the authorities for a bus-stop on their streets, but they would not want the bus-stop to be “in front of their house”. “If we listened to that,” Dr Liu said, “since nobody wanted to put bus-stops in front of their houses, there would be no bus-stops. It is quite undesirable and dangerous for any government official to say, ‘I’m doing this because I’m responding to people’s requests’. That, to me, is not serving the best interests of the people.” Dr Liu added that policymakers should listen to professional associations as well, given that businesses “have a broader perspective”. He stressed the importance of having a long-term “grand civic design” for Singapore in the future.... Continue Reading