Glossary
Local terms used on this site, in the sense they are used here. Linked from the first time each one appears in a walk.
- HDB 建屋发展局（组屋）
- The Housing and Development Board, the statutory board that has built most of the country's housing since 1960. Around eight in ten residents live in an HDB flat; most own theirs on a 99-year lease.
- SIT 新加坡改良信托局
- The Singapore Improvement Trust, HDB's colonial-era predecessor. Its best-known work is the pre-war Tiong Bahru estate, built 1936–1941.
- Void deck 楼下空地
- The open, unenclosed ground floor of an HDB block. Introduced in the early 1970s. Used for wakes, weddings, Meet-the-People Sessions, kindergartens, chess and doing nothing.
- Five-foot way 五脚基
- The covered walkway running along the front of shophouses, one step up from the road. From the 1822 town plan's requirement for a continuous covered verandah; kaki lima in Malay.
- Meet-the-People Session 接见选民活动
- The weekly evening session at which residents queue to put a problem to their Member of Parliament — a bill, a flat, a permit, a neighbour. Usually held at a void deck or a community centre.
- Neighbourhood centre 邻里中心
- The middle tier of an HDB town: a cluster of shops, clinic, market and coffee shop serving a few thousand flats. Above it is the town centre; below it, the precinct.
- LRT 轻轨
- The Light Rail Transit loops that feed MRT stations inside the newer towns — Bukit Panjang, Sengkang, Punggol. Driverless, two or three carriages, running above the blocks.
- Sheltered linkway 有盖走道
- Roofed walkways connecting stations, interchanges, schools and blocks. The build-out programme added roughly 200 km of them, on the working rule that a station should be reachable under cover from about 400 m.
- ABC Waters 活跃、美丽、洁净水源计划
- Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters: the national programme that turns drains, canals and reservoirs into public space. The Kallang River through Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park is its best-known project.
- Monsoon seasons 季候风
- Northeast Monsoon, roughly December to March: long grey rain. Southwest Monsoon, June to September: pre-dawn squall lines off Sumatra. Between them, the inter-monsoon months bring afternoon thunderstorms.
- Park Connector 公园连道
- The island-wide network of green corridors linking parks along canals, under viaducts and through estates. You can cross most of Singapore on it without sharing a road with a car.
- Kopitiam 咖啡店
- The neighbourhood coffee shop: a handful of stalls around a drinks counter, open early, cheap, and the default place to sit. Not a café.
- Kampong 甘榜
- Malay for village. Before the towns, most people lived in kampongs. The word now carries a whole argument about what was traded away for the flats.
- Chope 占位
- To reserve a seat, classically by leaving a packet of tissues on the table. Binding by custom, not by law.