HDB'S UPGRADING PROGRAMME

Abstract

Throughout the past three decades, the Housing and Development Board's public housing development has gone through numerous stages - from New Towns constructed with the primary aim of alleviating the problem of housing shortage to New Towns constructed with the aim of providing the residents with a total living environment. The recent announcement by Minister for National Development, Mr. S. Dhanabalan on the government's intention to embark on a large-scale upgrading project signifies the Board's move into yet another stage of public housing development - the upgrading of existing New Towns. This Upgrading Project aims to bring the existing New Towns to a standard comparable to or even better than the Board's latest housing project in Pasir Ris and Bishan. The aim of this dissertation is to test the hypothesis that due to the differences in physical and socio-economic characteristics of New Towns built during the different stages of public housing development, residents' responses to the Upgrading Programme will differ. The findings of the study proves that this hypothesis is true. Responses of residents from New Towns built during the later stages were found to be more favourable to the Upgrading Programme than those of residents from New Towns built during the earlier stages. This difference in responses was traced to the difference in the physical characteristics of the towns (namely quality of fittings and finishes as well as quality of facilities) and socio-economic characteristics of households (namely monthly household Income, number of income earners per household and age of household heads).