Kampong Lorong Buangkok: The Last Village of Singapore

Singapore: It’s skyscrapers, light shows and futurism. But the Asian city-state has preserved a village where time seems to have stood still. A visit to Kampong Lorong Buangkok.

Singapore is one of the cities in the world that has undergone rapid change in recent decades. Today the city is famous for the futuristic Gardens by the Bay and its impressive skyline. Today’s version of the city has little in common with that of the 1960s. But between modern skyscrapers there is a piece of land where you can dream back in time: Kampong Lorong Buangkok. It is the last village in Singapore.

The approximately 25 one-story wooden houses with tin roofs stand in stark contrast to the hundreds of meters high skyscraper towers that can be seen from the village. However, if you walk through Kampong Lorong Buangkok, it is better to look at the ground than in the air. Because here, unlike in Singapore, which is otherwise so concreted over, plants grow everywhere. This attracts crickets that chirp for attention. In addition, chickens run around in coops, the residents sit on their verandas and watch the hustle and bustle. Village life as written. By the way, Kampong means exactly that in Malay. Namely “village”.

Singapore used to be made up of villages / Kampong Lorong Buangkok

Fifty years ago, Kampong Lorong Buangkok would not have caused a stir in Singapore. Until the early 1970s, villages like this were quite normal in the cityscape. In the 1980s, however, the city-state was urbanized – the “era of the expressways” was ushered in, as the BBC writes. Small streets became multi-lane highways.

The problem of villages like Kampong Lorong Buangkok: Space in Singapore is limited by the sea. Other villages had to give way to large construction projects. Some residents left voluntarily, happy to have running water and flush toilets in their new apartments in the modern skyscrapers. But the residents of Kampong Lorong Buangkok remained steadfast. But that didn’t matter much to the government. According to their assessment, the environment is not attractive for the development of trade, industry or residential areas.

The cheapest apartments in Singapore / Kampong Lorong Buangkok

It is also the rental prices that keep the residents in the village. Tenants here pay between three and 19 euros a month for their house. So you can live in Kampong Lorong Buangkok cheaper than anywhere else in Singapore. Just a few meters away, in one of the futuristic modern apartment blocks, residents have to pay around 20 times more for an apartment that is significantly smaller than the houses in the village. This emerges from a report in the Singaporean “The Straits Times”.

However, anyone who has acquired a taste for it and would like to move in has had bad luck. Because there hasn’t been a single new resident in the village since the 1990s. In order for one of the coveted apartments to become free, someone would first have to move out or die. If this is the case, priority is given to those people who already have family living in the village.

How long can the village continue?

However, the village in Singapore is not entirely undisputed. In 2014, for example, there were plans to raze Kampong Lorong Buangkok and build a highway. Two schools and a public park on the site were also considered. While these proposals are still on the table, the country’s Minister for National Development, Desmond Lee, stated in a 2017 speech that “there is no intention of implementing these developments in the near future”.

Visitors can explore the village on their own or as part of a tour. Lets go Tour offers two-hour guided tours of Kampong Lorong Buangkok every day.

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