
The underground world of Singapore - ValentineC
http://www.yp.sg/secret-underground-world-singapore/
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revicon
I was similarly impressed by the gigantic underground systems in Montreal.
Many people go for months during the winter time never going above ground,
working, shopping and living all inside the interconnected underground
shopping malls businesses etc.

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tpurves
Toronto's underground system is the largest one in the world. 1200 retail
locations, 30km long, 4M sq feet of retail space. It's very nice, all marble
or polished stone everywhere, brightly lit, good food courts. Many many food
courts. Almost all of it privately maintained and owned by each of the 50+
connected downtown towers and buildings.

In the summer, no one goes above ground it's too hot and humid. In the Winter
it's too cold. For a few glorious weeks in Spring and Fall however, all the
downtown residents and office workers find it hospitable to occasionally pop
outside of their towers to enjoy the outdoors.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(Toronto)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_\(Toronto\))

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SubiculumCode
Sounds like the kind of people that could stand living underground on Mars.

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ethbro
Cached:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.yp.sg/secret-
underground-world-singapore/)

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rb808
That is cool. Would be great to have a "Common Service Tunnel" in all cities.
Its insane how much roadway gets dug up each year. Of course I doubt they'd
all be as clean as the one in the Singapore photo.

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noobermin
It's the advantage you get when your city's development occurs after centuries
of experience of others, you can improve on the mistakes every other
metropolis made. The same is true of sg's transit system, roads, etc.

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blt
I could see Singapore building an air conditioned dome over the whole city.
Besides the nonfree press, etc, the relentless heat and humidity is the
biggest negative of the city.

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hellofunk
Only for visitors. You get to used to the climate pretty quickly if you live
there. Many of my neighbors there wouldn't even bother with AC.

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jasonm23
Still took me 2+ years to acclimatise properly.

Now I'm uncomfortable in temperatures lower than 28C (84F)

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hellofunk
2 yrs sounds about right. I think in my case it was shorter than that, but
I've always liked hot climates.

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yosito
TL;DR Underneath Singapore lie 5+ awesome layers of infrastructire. Pedestrian
tunnels, utility tunnels, a metro, an armory and oil storage.

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bartart
Is it not a problem that Singapore is right on the ocean? Does anyone know if
there risk of flooding or anything?

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hellofunk
Singapore is one of the few major populations on earth that is shielded from
most natural disasters. It's also not near a fault line, so earthquakes,
tropical storms, tsunamis are unlikely to affect it.

Major flooding can occur due to rains, however. The city has dealt with it in
the past and seems to have that under control.

The other major disaster that hits Singapore frequently throughout every year
is the "haze" crisis [0], which is actually man-made. It was particularly bad
when I was there in 2013. But I mention this only as an aside since we're
talking about natural disasters; it wouldn't affect the plans mentioned in
this article.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Southeast_Asian_haze#Sing...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Southeast_Asian_haze#Singapore)

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jsemrau
2015 wasn't too good either. Here the view from my office at the time
[https://imgur.com/zVECQQ3](https://imgur.com/zVECQQ3)

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hellofunk
That's awful, I'm sorry to see that. The haze problem was one of the main
reasons I left Singapore. It's no way to live, no way to raise children. In
2013 I remember there was a street where a lot of birds died mid-flight from
suffocation on the smoke, fell to the ground and littered the pavement.

It's just sad to see a problem like this, all caused by human activity. It
could be stopped but not much is being done to do so.

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borgdr
While interesting, this lacked the hookers and blow I was looking forward to
from the headline.

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swyx
sounds like Singapore then

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wahern

      And yet there are also places where Singaporean spotlessness 
      gives way to dirt. Places like Geylang, a red light district 
      well off the tourist map, and Orchard Towers, with its
      so-called "four floors of whores".
    

\-- [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/life/sex-in-singapore-
the-e...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/life/sex-in-singapore-the-expats-
who-spend-their-evenings-seeking-sle/)

Actually, Geylang is hardly off the tourist map. It's quickly becoming more
like the French Quarter in New Orleans--a rapidly gentrifying night spot with
enough of the historical seedy element (in this case, many of the famous
brothels with the hanging red lanterns that only a few years ago were far more
numerous) to keep things authentic. Also a relatively affordable and
increasingly popular place to live that's close to downtown.

FWIW, I know this because with all the new development it's a popular area for
Airbnb rentals. Given it's reputation, I did some research as well as inquire
with local family-in-law. As an outsider a very familiar picture emerges of a
changing historic neighborhood. But opinions from Singaporeans might be far
more mixed.

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swyx
am Singaporean. its fine.

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autokad
those are some impressive achievements, let alone for a country as small as
Singapore :)

cant wait till they start doing more recreational stuff underground, like an
escape room

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eru
It's funny: over in the comments about a healthcare article they say that
Singapore has it easier because it's smaller. And here we admire them for
pulling things off despite being small.

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autokad
I didnt read those comments, but large capital projects one would think is
harder, since they collect less overall revenue. For example its hard to
imagine singapore sending a person to mars, over say China or US

other things, especially people related, are much easier. its very close
together, very homogeneous, etc.

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jpatokal
Uhh, Singapore is very far from homogeneous. There are Chinese, Malays,
Indians, Eurasians, over a million expats from all countries and in all social
classes and four official languages to cater to them all.

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jessaustin
Haha this reminds me of when I lived and worked in Singapore and an Andersen
consultant flew in from Kansas to "help us out". His first complaint was that
there was nowhere to eat! That was so stupid I couldn't respond, since there
is more culinary variety in Singapore than anywhere else I've ever been, but
eventually I figured out that he wasn't able to eat anywhere besides a
steakhouse, which establishments are common in Kansas. (Of course he could
have found one if he had looked hard enough, although fair warning on the
unpalatable Australian beef, but instead he got in some sort of sensitivity
trouble and flew back home...)

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skissane
> although fair warning on the unpalatable Australian beef

Is Australian beef unpalatable? It all depends on the cut and the grade, of
course; but, buying good quality beef here in Australia, comparing it to beef
I've tasted in restaurants in the US, it tastes just as good.

Maybe the stuff we export to Singapore isn't that good. Or maybe higher prices
push people towards the lower quality stuff.

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eru
Really good beef is expensive in Singapore, and the locals don't have that
much of a culture steak. So there's a bunch of bad restaurants for western
expats, and some very high end ones.

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IIAOPSW
As cool as this is, I think the space savings is a red herring. There's still
plenty of undeveloped land in SG, and lots of low rise buildings. A
combination of well placed subway stops, transitioning some low-rise
apartments to high rise, avoiding excessive road/parking space and generally
competent urban planning should be enough to accommodate Singapore's
burgeoning population without the need for mole people. Its always cheaper and
easier to build up and out than to dig down.

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noobermin
I'm not sure where you get that idea. There isn't plenty of undeveloped land
unless you're talking about jurong or punggol, and it doesn't help if those
places take 2 or so hours to commute to downtown from on the MRT. If you're
talking about the small patches of parks and the _historic heritage sites_ , I
think they have their reasons for keeping those.

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hellofunk
> it doesn't help if those places take 2 or so hours to commute to downtown
> from on the MRT

This is part of the problem; it should never take 2 or more hours to go
anywhere in a place as small as Singapore.

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jpatokal
It doesn't? It's 53 min from Tuas Link at the extreme western tip of Singapore
to Raffles Place by MRT, and you'd be hard pressed to find a place in
Singapore where even a connecting bus would add more than 30 min to that.

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mxuribe
I would have thought Bond-type villains would be the only folks with the guts
to even attempt projects like this, let alone actually complete them; really
cool! Kudos to Singapore!

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WalterBright
Guess it's not a secret anymore!

