Orchard Road is one of the premier shopping streets in the world and it is know to some Singaporeans as the heart of Singapore. In an effort to make Orchard Road a better place, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has announced its plan of a $40 million makeover for Orchard Road. However, I feel that the money pumped into this expensive project has not been put into good use because this project has a minimal impact on tourists and may even backfire. I will show that there are more important priorities for Singapore instead of a lavish Orchard Road facelift, and that the project will have a minute impact and what it achieves will eventually contradict its aims.
In these tumultuous years, where unemployment cases are rising due to the economic recession, it is very essential that the government should budget more funds for improving the welfare of the community, and also to secure jobs and stimulate the economy. According to the minister mentor and previous Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, GDP could fall 10 per cent this year. The father of modern Singapore is so concerned about this issue, that he issued a warning this month for people to ready themselves for tough times ahead, which suggests the scale of the recession is gigantic and it can impact many people lives very enormously and negatively. Furthermore, this seems to be a bigger priority than to lavishly spend to beautify the already largely decorated Orchard Road, creating no need to further spend on another makeup of Orchard Road. Hence, the money put into the $40 million makeover has not been put to good use and should be instead allocated to more pertinent issues like securing jobs for those breadmakers and improving the economic situation.
This makeover also has minimal impact. This is seen as very few people notice the changes in Orchard Road despite the extreme makeover. For example, some comments made were that there was "no big difference" and this minute change can only be noticed if you"looked closely". Furthermore, many people were shocked that such a huge amount of money was allocated for the makeover. Some even thought that the changes only amonted to a cost of about "1 million dollars". Instead, many people agreed that "they should have left Orchard Road as it was" and the STB should have focused more into maintaining the area and cleaning up the area. A concern was that although there were some changes, the "pavement still looks so dirty", like it was floored "three decades ago". Such comments made by Singaporeans show us that this change did not achieve the great impact it was supposed to have, and hence and was no worth the effort put into this makeover, and all these effort established for this ridiculous caused can be diverted to neglected first priorities.
However, one may argue that these changes help to beautify and improve the place, making it more appealing for tourists to come to Singapore. For instance, there are the widening of pavements, the glass panels and there are also new street lamps, coordinated street furniture and potted flower totems. An important incentive is that there will be more new malls to shop in te future, and this would lure tourists. However, the Orchard makeover may backfire. Tourists have been complaining about the construction sites at Orchard Road. For example, a certain tourist expected Orhard Road to be prettier and nicer", and yet what they see is just "noise and construction". This has also impeded many Singaporeans to go to Orchard Road, as they complain that these construction sites "block their way". This results in a less crowded Orchard Road which is opposite of the tourists' expectations of Orchard Road to be a bustling place in the centre of Singapore. Hence, instead of attracting tourists, this makeover may cause tourists to cancel their plans after learning that Orchard Road is "nothing like what [they] see in [their] travel books", and we can conclude that the makeover will achieve in a result contradictory to its aims.
Therefore, I will conclude that the Orchard Road makeover and facelift is not a smart decision made by the authorities. This is because it is completely wasteful as such a plan would have a small impact and would not achieve its aim, especially when the country is going through difficult times as it is experiencing an economic recession. Maybe the government needs to be prodded to rethink on its priorities and decisions, and spend more time caring about its citizens than daydreaming on how to attract tourists in vain.
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Sad reality, but thank you for this post.
ReplyDeleteOrchard Road makeover would have been greenlit before the market crashes. I agree with the sentiment of money better spent but the government in this case could not be faulted for paying out the $40 Million. It was either that or not paying the contractors. Which would have been disastrous.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the government needs to be prodded to rethink on its priorities and decisions, and spend more time caring about its citizens than daydreaming on how to attract tourists in vain.
ReplyDeleteAll these are being done simultaneously. So during a recession, we just stop construction and then after we recover, we continue it?
The Orchard Rd rejuvenation project was started at a time when construction costs were spiraling upwards as the construction industry was experiencing a boom, such as with the en-bloc devts and so on. Anyway, the works are already complete, and what remains are the private developers building new shopping complexes.
ReplyDeleteThere are always comments that Singapore looks like it's in a perpetual state of construction. It's often inconvenient, but that's how the city renews itself. Once the developments along Orchard Road are finished, probably in the next 1-2 years, things should be back to normal.