Talk:Public housing in Singapore/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 10:31, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Will take this one, expect comments tonight or within the next couple of days. —Kusma (talk) 10:31, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Progress and general comments
Overall a quite nice article about an important aspect of Singapore. It looks well researched and the sources seem reliable. Ref layout could be improved a little: Images appear freely licensed (many of them taken by Wikipedians that I remember from a long time ago; in the mid-2000s there was a highly active Singaporean Wikipedia community including several admins) and relevant to the article, with a nice spread of images from different eras.
 * Cheong 2016: could give OCLC number
 * Chua 1991: use title case instead of ALL CAPS
 * Some others (Kuah, Ooi) could have DOI or JSTOR ids added to the citation templates
 * It is unclear which of the sources are cited with sfn and which are not. Consider converting all to sfn, especially Liu 1974, which is used twice.

I will go through the article section by section, making comments on what content (if any) I feel is missing or unclear, and whether prose improvements need to be made. I will comment on the lead section last, to clarify whether it summarises the article correctly. —Kusma (talk) 23:04, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Content and prose review

 * History section: This is a bit lacking in background and motivation. Compare Public housing in Hong Kong, which motivates much better why public housing was needed.
 * I've added several statements describing why housing was first built by the SIT.


 * The public housing built by the SIT was similar in terms of density and living space to British public housing projects of the time this is a great explanation for people who know the UK well enough to know these housing projects, but perhaps you could tell the others a little more about this.
 * Added a clause stating that the housing was of low densities.


 * It is a bit confusing that SIT flats were at the same time too expensive and too much in demand. Or am I misunderstanding something?
 * I've changed the statement to state that the SIT were not building flats fast enough to cope with the increase in Singapore's population.


 * emergency housing for displaced kampong dwellers why were they displaced, and by whom?
 * They were displaced by fires, added substantiation regarding why.


 * I feel like I am lacking some background on the kampong story. I can guess that perhaps 1950s Singapore still had rural kampong areas but that the land was needed for other developments and so people were displaced and resettled elsewhere? Could you try to make the historical background a little more explicit for people like me who have never even been to Singapore? other squatters displaced by fires or development schemes is also a bit ominous – there were many such people and they turned to squatting? Where did they find properties to squat in?
 * I've added some background regarding the kampong situation of that era, and why it was deemed necessary to displace them. For the squatters term, these people are not described as such in the source, so I've changed it to "kampong residents".


 * Something I'm not sure about is whether there should be some background/context about population of Singapore and other infrastructure (the MRT mostly). Perhaps not necessary for GA, so I shouldn't ask for it.
 * There's some discussion regarding population growth in the paragraph on the postwar kampongs, but for the infrastructure, I personaly don't see it as relevant to the scope of the article.


 * Central Provident Fund: give a short gloss in the article (just mention that it is some sort of pensions account).
 * Done.


 * Flats were built by the Jurong Town Corporation in Jurong and Sembawang between 1968 and 1982,[24] and the Housing and Urban Development Company (HUDC) was set up in 1974 to provide flats for middle-class residents. I don't see a good reason to combine the two statements to a single sentence.
 * Sentence split.


 * The 1980s saw the introduction of larger executive flats[27] while the HDB, which took over the HUDC in 1982, stopped construction of HUDC flats because HUDC prices were approaching those of private property and the middle class was able to purchase HDB flats.[28] I'm not sure I understand. What are "HUDC flats" if not flats built by HUDC? What are "HDB flats"? I also don't fully understand the reasoning given.
 * I've changed it to show that the middle class that the HUDC flats were intended for were unable to purchase private housing and were ineligible for the HDB flats (lower-end flats, that is) when the HUDC was set up in the mid-1970s, and the flats are now described as "middle class flats built by the HUDC" to make it clearer.


 * limit on Malay residents interesting. I assume this is a maximum percentage of Malay residents? the limits were extended to all races now I'm curious how many different races are recognised here and how belonging to a certain race is determined, but perhaps that leads too far from the topic of this article :)
 * I've added a link to Demographics of Singapore, and for the limit on Malay residents, yes, that is the case.


 * Is the link of "Design and Build" to the rather generic Design–build appropriate?
 * It isn't, so I've removed the link (it seems to be a redirect).


 * Physical organisation section: perhaps put into historical context (since when is the development in new towns?) Are further new towns still being constructed? (The 2010s/2020s information above would make me expect that no; in that case, perhaps some of this shouldn't be stated in present tense).
 * I've added a paragraph regarding the history of new town development, below the existing paragraph.


 * Lead section: I think I am mostly happy with this. I'd write "down from a high", not "decreasing from a high" but then I'm not a native speaker ;)
 * Done.

Having read so far, I'm kind of wondering how happy Singaporeans are with the housing policies and schemes, and whether there is any significant criticism that should be mentioned. (Most of the changes seem to be based on economic demand more than anything else). Are/were there people opposed to pubic housing because it takes away some profit opportunities/takes away land that could be used for private developments? Are/were there people opposed to the architectural styles? (The answers could well be "no" but my knowledge of Singaporean culture is rather limited). Let me know your thoughts about my comments; I'll put the article on hold for the moment. —Kusma (talk) 21:46, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I've responded to some of the points, will follow up on the rest tomorrow. R22-3877 (talk) 14:51, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Have responded to the rest. R22-3877 (talk) 08:03, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks great (there's of course still room for improvement, but this is not an FA review). Congratulations on achieving another Good Article! —Kusma (talk) 09:49, 6 March 2022 (UTC)