Singapore: Where your home loses value & everyone's better off

Unlike any other city on earth, Singapore is also a country, which gives it full authority over land, master planning, and taxation.

The government even owns 90% of the country’s land, which means every person and business leases property from the state through 30, 60, and 99-year leases. More than 80% of the city lives in social housing.

For the first time, we can see Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City at scale, and wow. It works!

Singapore was a British Colony before it became a Japanese stronghold during World War II. When external forces withdrew, the island tried to join Malaysia but was expelled for fighting for racial equality and shared economic prosperity. Suddenly independent in 1965, with no natural resources, massive unemployment, and a severe housing shortage that quickly dissolved into slums and squatter settlements, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew passed the Land Acquisition Act, which gave the state full authority to appropriate private land at a discount.

The city began claiming land and using its Housing Development Board to build residential buildings on it. As each new building went up, units were sold as a 99-year lease. By then, citizens already had access to the British-installed Central Provident Fund (or CPF), a mandatory savings account that could only be used for housing, healthcare, and eventually retirement. Now they could use it to buy new leases. Just as we might take out a mortgage to buy a home, Singaporeans could take out a mortgage to buy a lease, and even use their CPF account for the down payment!

Singapore: Where your home loses value & everyone's better off

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