Commentary (Practice)

(Last edited 7 April 09)

      I'll refer to the article, "So, what's new?" from The Sunday Times, 15 March 2009, by Frankie Chee. It states that despite the $40-million makeover of Orchard Road, 40 out of the 100 people polled did not notice anything different. The landscaping changes included glass panels, flower totems and street furniture. Some had felt that the Singapore Tourism Board should have done more landscaping changes with that amount of money. Obviously a significant number of people surveyed were unsatisfied.

      The question is: should the government always spend money on noticable changes? I think not; some changes need not be noticable to the public to be necessary to make, but that does not mean that everything goes unnoticed at all.

What do I mean by the necessary changes not having to be noticable? Not all of the $40 million was spent on the landscaping alone; other costs covered included lighting, power upgrading, repaving etc. These changes can help in the long run, for example, better lighting means less maintenance needed; better power may mean energy savings. These changes are not so obvious (not everyone would look up at the lamposts or look underground) but they are still necessary in the infrastructure of Orchard Road.

      Still, the public expected more physical changes in the general appearance of the road. The landscaping touches are seen as too minor or unnoticable. Hence, the STB should still have focused more on the landscaping, since that was what the public was hoping for given the budget of the project. Perhaps the STB should have called the project as "upgrading works" instead of a facelift, then the focus would not shift so much on the final look of Orchard Road.

     In another article, "Esplanade's outdoor theatre gets $6m facelift" by Ashraf Safdar, Channel NewsAsia, on 18 April 2007 (link), it was announced that the outdoor theatre would undergo a $6 million facelift, expanding its capacity from 200 to 1100 people. The stage would also extend from 10m to 11m over the water "with steps descending into the bay". There have been no complaints on the makeover since.

      Unlike the Orchard Road scenario, this project's changes are all beneficial and obvious. It will help to accomodate the increasing crowd, especially when there are tourist attractions nearby, like the Singapore Flyer. The Orchard Road facelift has more inconspicuous physical changes, which is what the hype was all about.

      Hence, the government need not always spend money on implementing obvious changes, but there must still be changes that can be easily noticable. Even a simple change of colour would catch the public's eye better and make them feel that the money was not gone to waste.

      Of course, there must be proper planning involved in the landscaping. Who would want to see a neon green Orchard?