[cl42]

That's a beautiful question. I am not intimately familiar with Singapore's planning processes. The authors above (Jane Jacobs, James C. Scott) would argue that the best cities/countries are ones that have a centralized strategy that leaves enough leeway to enable each community to optimize their specific situation on their own.

I don't know if Singapore does that or not. Do you have a POV?

I've been meaning to read Lee Kuan Yew's "From Third World to First" to learn more but haven't found the time.

[mbg721]

Singapore does have the advantage of being compact and having the ability to set policy at all levels at once. The US can't do that, because cities and towns depend on the state and federal governments for funding, but those same cities and towns have some autonomy in how they run day-to-day governance.