The Truth About 6.5

Packed buses, packed trains, packed shopping malls, packed food courts are all you can see and you find yourself squeezing your way through the thousands that surround you.

I thought the overpopulation problem in Singapore was becoming quite real, so I went to gather some population statistics. And they were rather disturbing.

As of 2006, Singapore's population stands at 4.48 million. Although our most identical city in Hong Kong boasts a significantly higher population (7.04 million), their land area is larger too. Hong Kong has a land area of 1099 square kilometers but Singapore only has a land area of 699.4 square kilometers.

Therefore, although Hong Kong has a significantly higher population compared to Singapore, their population density (6407 persons per square km) is only slightly higher than ours (6208 persons per square km). This means we are almost as cramped as Hong Kong is, and your friends who have been to Hong Kong will tell you how bad the overpopulation problem there is.

So what's with the plans to increase our population to 6.5 million?

We want to be up there with the likes of Tokyo, New York, London and Hong Kong as one of the world's biggest cities, but we often forget or simply ignore the fact our land area is much smaller than theirs!

If we had a 6.5 million population, our population density would increase to 9293 persons per square km, far overtaking Hong Kong at 6407 persons per square km. This means we will be 45% more crowded than Hong Kong already is now!!!

And with the population boom will go our quality of life too.