HOUSING

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THEN: These flats in Upper Pickering Street are built by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), set up in 1927 to house lower-income residents living near the city centre. The flats have since been torn down, but SIT flats can still be found in Tiong Bahru.

NOW: These flats in Jalan Besar are built by the Housing and Development Board (HDB), which was formed in 1960 to deal with the dire housing shortage. It took just over three years to outbuild the 23,019 units the SIT completed in its 32 years of existence. In the next few decades, the HDB resettled Singaporeans from urban slums and rural kampungs areas into spanking new towns across the island. A total of 82 per cent of residents live in public housing today.

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