Kembangan

[Lilo]

Hello!

I will be moving to SG soon. I am looking at this room to rent in a flat in Kembangan near the MTR. I have been to SG several times but not specifically to Kembangan Area.

Would you know if Kembangan is a nice residential area? Quiet, accessible to food places, grocery, safe, etc? Would you know if this area has more singles than families? Is it accessible to the Raffles/Novena by other means than the train?

Anybody heard of Vicenta Lodge? I cannot seem to find any pics or much info on the net. Would greatly appreciate your thoughts. Many thanks!

[David91]

Would you know if Kembangan is a nice residential area?

Almost all the more mature areas of Singapore are "nice".

Quiet

Unless you choose to live over or near a 24 hour coffeeshop or a place of entertainment, almost all life in singapore is quiet.

accessible to food places,

If by this you mean places to eat, almost every area has coffeeshops selling food.

grocery,

All the groups of older blocks have small general shops in the bombshelters. I have three major neighbourhood shopping centres within ten minutes walk (in different directions), with the town shopping area some twenty minutes walk.

safe, etc?

By Western standards, there is almost no crime in Singapore so if you are afraid of mugging, etc, put your fears away. However, there are cultural rules to learn and you can get into trouble until you learn that using your finger to point is very rude, staring at people is provocative, etc.

Would you know if this area has more singles than families?

This is a meaningless question in Singapore. The population is managed by race with HDB blocks required to maintain quotas of occupation. The family culture is strong so many children remain within the family nest until quite old, single people who do move out of the family homes often live in rented rooms, etc.

Is it accessible to the Raffles/Novena by other means than the train?

There is a good bus service and taxis pass every few minutes looking for trade.

[Grim Reaper]

Hello!
Would you know if Kembangan is a nice residential area? Quiet, accessible to food places, grocery, safe, etc? Would you know if this area has more singles than families? Is it accessible to the Raffles/Novena by other means than the train?

Anybody heard of Vicenta Lodge? I cannot seem to find any pics or much info on the net. Would greatly appreciate your thoughts. Many thanks!

Kembangan is indeed a nice residential area at East Coast, although it is not right at the beachfront, a bit more inland "behind" Siglap and Frankel. Residential it is, more condos than HDB, a shopping centre (not quite interesting, for shopping all east coasters will prefer to go to Parkway Parade mall, the largest mall in east coast.

Along Changi Road, cutting through Kembangan, are a thousand eateries, some of them famous for good food, so you're in the right place for local food.

Whether or not more families than singles, hard to say, it is not a party area with young singles, that for sure.

Convenient with the MRT station right towards downtown (change at City hall fro Novena, a 35 min ride approximately, raffles is only a 20 min ride, direct). But why taking a bus when mrt is so easy and convenient?

The only thing I do agree to with the above poster, Singapore is very safe, so no issues there at Kembangan either.

[David91]

"The only thing I do agree to with the above poster, Singapore is very safe, so no issues there at Kembangan either."

What a strange thing to say when it is quite obvious that we agree on every point but simply have a different way of answering the same questions.

[Lilo]

This is a meaningless question in Singapore. The population is managed by race with HDB blocks required to maintain quotas of occupation. The family culture is strong so many children remain within the family nest until quite old, single people who do move out of the family homes often live in rented rooms, etc.

Thanks a lot for the info! I wanted to find other people's opinion of the area aside from those of the people who are renting out the flat. Your replies are really great to hear.

A have a question though, what does is it mean when you said the "population is maintained by race?" Does that mean a certain race usually occupies a certain area? If this is correct, what would be the dominant group around the Kembangan area?

[Grim Reaper]

"The only thing I do agree to with the above poster, Singapore is very safe, so no issues there at Kembangan either."

What a strange thing to say when it is quite obvious that we agree on every point but simply have a different way of answering the same questions.

I do not agree with following:

This is a meaningless question in Singapore. The population is managed by race with HDB blocks required to maintain quotas of occupation. The family culture is strong so many children remain within the family nest until quite old, single people who do move out of the family homes often live in rented rooms, etc.

Reason being, Kembangan is not an HDB area in that sense that the majority of housing in the area is either private houses or condos, no HDB.

therefore no distinction of races in the neighbourhood, Kembangan is a mix of all you find in Singapore, but as said merely private houses and condos.

[David91]

Wow, as Alice is reported as saying, this is getting stranger and stranger. I make a general statement about Singapore (which you seem to agree with) but you deny its correctness because it does not apply to Kembangan. Well, let us not fall out about it. However, if you will forgive one minor correction. "Kembangan is not an HDB area in that sense that the majority of housing in the area is either private houses or condos, no HDB." You are correct that the "majority" of the housing in the area is private but the "minority" of HDB blocks are to be found at Lengkong Tiga where the ethnic quota system does apply to the several thousand who live there.

And to answer Lilo's question:

About 85% of Singapore's population live in HDB estates (a statistic that should help you get Kembangan into context). A policy of ethnic quotas for public housing was introduced in 1989 to ensure a balanced racial mix in every neighbourhood. The hope was and remains that this will foster a better climate of racial harmony. Limits were set and are constantly reviewed to maintain the proportion of races allowed to live in every HDB neighbourhood and in the individual apartment blocks within each neighbourhood, and this policy continues to have immense repercussions on the configuration of the ethnic residential landscape across the island. Numerically speaking, the Chinese are the dominant group, followed in descending order by the Malays, the Indian populations and the very small percentage of ex-pats.

[Grim Reaper]

Your analysis of HDB was ok, no point arguing. But indeed Kembangan is not a typical "heartland" HDB area like so many others.

If you look at the map at HDB hub at Toa Payoh (in the hall there is a map of SIngapore, which has only the HDB flat areas assigned, all other non-hdb areas are blank), you will see that Kembangan is indeed almost non-HDB.

For the record, 75% of Singaporeans live in HDB, not 85%.

As said, you are right with what you wrote about HDB, but it is non relevant for Kembangan.

For Lilo, if you are interested, you can find all about HDB on following site: http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10200p.nsf ... enDocument

[David91]

It seems we're both not completely accurate about the percentage of the Singapore population living in HDB flats. Sorry, I should have checked before putting a number down. The HDB Annual Report for 2005/6 which estimates total population and their residences up to 31st March 2006, has the percentage as 82% down one percent from 2004/5 (http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10297p.nsf ... charts.pdf).

And, for the record, there are 16 HDB blocks in the Lengkong Tiga estate.

Since I am quite old, I don't want to hasten a meeting with you in your professional capacity, so I will let you have the last word on this topic if you feel so inclined.