

Built on Sand: Singapore and the New State of Risk - hboon
http://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/issues/39/built-on-sand-singapore-and-the-new-state-of-risk

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bretthopper
Artificial shore/land expansion is really interesting so I loved this article.

This article mentions illegal sand trade but doesn't go into much detail about
sand theft.

In 2008 someone stole 500 truck loads of sand from a Jamaican beach. There's
some details on that one and another in Hungary [1].

One question I wish this article addressed is what Singapore does with the
land excavated from all its building developments.

In Toronto for example, our waterfront has been expanded for over 50 years
with land excavated from digging down for building foundations. I believe it
extends a kilometre more than the natural shoreline [2]. They even created a
5km long "spit" [3] to act as a breakwater.

And I'm sure this is common in a lot of bigger waterfront cities as well.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_theft](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_theft)
[2]
[http://www.blogto.com/city/2011/07/that_time_toronto_filled_...](http://www.blogto.com/city/2011/07/that_time_toronto_filled_in_the_harbour/)
[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Street_Spit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Street_Spit)

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damon_c
Also, see Battery Park City in NYC.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_Park_City](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_Park_City)

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Punoxysm
After having a little patience to digest the stuffy academic language I
realized something:

This is one of the craziest articles I have ever read.

It is like the premise of a sci-fi novel where future states slowly creep
along by dredging and filling in land. But it's actually really happening at a
scale beyond novelties like Dubai and non-contentious (at least
internationally) expansions like Battery Park City.

The fact that sand-smuggling is a thing...

~~~
Someone
It doesn't have to be slowly. China is building islands at over 1000 km of its
mainland in the Spratley islands:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8701/index.h...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8701/index.html)

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dagurp
I recommend the documentary Sand Wars [http://www.sand-
wars.com/](http://www.sand-wars.com/) if you want to know more about the sand
trade

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vacri
_Milton notes that .6 miles of new ground requires 37.5 million cubic meters
of fill_

.6 miles is 1 kilometer. Why would you convert to imperial for one measure,
but leave the second as metric?

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jacques_chester
I'm going to guess that they didn't know how to do the volumetric conversion.

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rajacombinator
Stopped reading at "lebensraum." The author should be ashamed.

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lostlogin
>>Singapore, in keeping with its policy of transparency...<< Wow, straight
face and all. Let's discuss freedom of speech, politics or any other human
rights and see how transparent things remain.

~~~
slyall
The writer was being sarcastic

~~~
jessaustin
Yeah it seems so, since earlier was this line:

 _A number of importers, including Singapore, consider the details of their
sourcing to be confidential and a matter of national security._

As in, they won't even admit from where the sand is being imported.

