Improving landuse also means a redevelopment of exiting infrustracture. One such plan is the Enbloc Redevelopment Scheme.

For example, certain blocks in older housing estates such as Bedok, Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio and Taman Jurong could be demolished and replaced with blocks of thirty or more storeys.

Yet the sky is not the limit. In the vicinity of runways, for example, there is a twelve-storey height restriction. Nevertheless building higher does make better use of available land.

For example, a typical secondary school in Singapore today occupies three hectares, compared to only 0.4 hectares for the Singapore International School in Hong Kong.

Where building skywards is not feasible, building underground can be investigated.

By 2000, the Singapore Cricket Club will have added twelve thousand square metres through the construction of two underground levels to house, among others, an aerobics room, squash courts, and a gymnasium.

Singapore 's first car stacking systems is in operation at the carpark at Heritage Place, near Bugis Junction. Using rollers, optic sensors and frames, the cars are stacked on multiple levels.

On a more macro scale, the Jurong Town Corporation, in its Industrial Land Plan for the 21st Century, intends to stretch the use of Singapore's stock of industrial land through the following action plans:

• redeveloping older industrial estates, making it easier for tenants to sublet excess factory space (or terminate the leases on the excess)
• providing financial assistance to encourage tenants to improve land productivity
• upgrading manufacturing operations to higher value-added activities
• doubling the plot ratio (the ratio of the built-up area to site area) from 0.48 to allow larger buildings

Another way to intensify land-use is to have multi-purpose facilities.

In some parts of Singapore, school fields double as sports fields for the neighbourhood community.

By 2000, the rooftop of the podium block of Chinatown Complex will be landscaped to have a jogging track, wading pool, jacuzzi, reflexology path, playground, barbeque pits, multipurpose court and study corners. It will be the first time a podium deck will be used so extensively.

Similarly, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) is working hard to integrate public transport interchanges and commercial land-use at the same site.

This has already been done in Woodlands Regional Centre and will soon take place in Toa Payoh, Mountbatten, Ang Mo Kio and Taman Jurong under the Housing and Development Board's (HDB) Estate Renewal Strategy.

The final prong is, of course, to manage demand.

This includes educating the younger generation of Singaporeans to be more cognizant of our constraints to growth. Managing traffic flow through Electronic Road Pricing and the Green Link Determining system also falls within this prong.

Additionally, some types of land-use have been given a new lease of life.

For example the disused granite quarry at Bukit Batok has been integrated into the town park. The Park Connector Network, which involves the building of cycling and jogging tracks over existing drainage sewers means that the drainage reserve is no longer merely functional in nature, with no additional land being used.

A similar example is the building of a stormwater collection pond beneath the Seletar-Bukit Timah Expressway interchange.

Part 1: The Need for Regulation
Part 2: Reducing Pollution

Reproduced with permission from the site formerly known as 'No Place Like Home', © Kenneth Y T Lim 1995-9