Town Centre Private: Fill & Download for Free

There is one extreme example of poor urban planning from the residents' perspective. Punggol New TownThe growth of the town was deliberately managed backwards.Residences were first built (2003) at the town limits with the LRT (light rail network) infrastructure completed but non-operational. First mover residents had to take shuttle buses across vacant plots to reach the empty town centre (with no amenities) where its MRT station is located.2 years mark,the LRT started operations along with the scattered mini-marts (groceries), clinics and such.8 - 10 years mark, the town centre started filling up with the newly-built higher-priced HDBs (public housing), ECs (semi-public housing) and private condominiums.12 years mark, the town centre is finally going to be complete with its mall with supermarket and cinema.Normal towns (everywhere else in the world) are built with a minimal set of functional amenities clustered around the town centre and extend outwards till Sprawl Hits the Wall.The planners in this case have maximised the value of the precious central region by postponing the development till the critical mass has been reached. They have kept the land bank value within the state coffers instead of letting private owners gain from the gentrification.A good move for the state might not always be good for the townspeople.

Not exactly my home town, but near the places where I lived 2005–2016.In June 2008, an 88-year-old retired nurse named Mary Ferns told her husband she was going into Livingston town centre, two or three bus stops away, to buy a pair of tights. She never returned.Between her home and the town centre is a small river with very steep banks covered with undergrowth. It was thought she might have tried to walk home, suffered a stroke as she approached one of the bridges and rolled down into the bushes, but weeks of intensive searching revealed nothing.Some weeks later, CCTV footage turned up an image of her striding down Princes Street in Edinburgh, around 25 miles from her home, a few hours after she disappeared. It’s conceivable that she had fallen asleep on the bus and been carried through to Edinburgh by accident - but not likely, since she would have known that if she were going to Livingston she would have to get off the bus almost as soon as she got on it, and she didn’t appear at all distressed or confused in the CCTV clip.Mary was never heard from again. Three years later a body was found under a bridge near her home - but it turned out to be that of a local man who had gone missing in 1996, possibly looking for a place to have a quiet, private drink, and had then suffered a fatal heart attack or stroke.

Well, we have a mixture of ownerships here.Car parks can be owned by private individuals or corporations, by local authorities or by government institutions.In the case of private owners they have two choices, charge or do not charge. Large centres will not charge you to park in their car parks as they know you will be coming in to the centre and spending money. Smaller owners of a car park for a pub or restaurant may of course not charge, or may charge a small fee which will be knocked off your bill when you pay; they do this to discourage others not patronising the establishment from using the park for free. A third category is of course dedicated car parks. They usually provide a cheaper service than do the local authority parks and it is their only source of income, and so they will not take kindly to a law that says they have to give it away for free and will sell the land for development.Government institutions provide car parks cost-free for their own staff and some (notably the Post Office when it was a still a government enterprise) rent out space at weekends, charging a small fee. Hospitals charge a small fortune to park; this is a particular bone of contention at the moment.Local authorities are a disgrace because whilst the cost of running a car park has to be recouped, many are running them at a profit, but the situation cannot last because whilst large out of town centres provide a better experience for buyers and offer 12,000 free car-parking spaces, those town centres are going to find themselves deserted and consequently facing falling revenues from their car parks and indeed their businesses. Perhaps local authorities should in fact consider scrapping or at least drastically lowering their rates if they wish to see town centres thrive. However this may put private car park owners out of business; but will they go anyway as the town centres slide further into irrelevance?It’s not as easy a thing as it looks at first glance, is it? And that’s why we don’t yet have a universal law.