I don’t want to spend too much time on questions that only bother other people, like this question:

Q: why is Singapore rated as one of the world’s most expensive cities?

In this case,  I decide to spend a few minutes, because my family members may ask this question, or they may face this question from their friends.

— First, these rankings are often politically motivated, perhaps to weaken the competition like a smear campaign.

— Next, to understand the ranking, we need to zoom into the basket of goods used to compared expensive cities. The score is a weighted sum over this basket.

According to various sources, the biggest reason for SG’s bad score is cost of car ownership (not taxi not public transport). Weightage of this item in the basket can be adjusted/manipulated.

— Note the basket is often constructed for a foreigner, perhaps a foreign executive, not an average local resident.

Local residents enjoy subsidies in education, healthcare, utilities, public transport,,, How about the elephant in the room — Housing?

Public Housing for SG citizens is subsidized in the demand-controlled HDB housing market. If (without demand control) a rich foreigner were allowed to buy HDB in bulk, then price could double or triple to the level of private properties.

Therefore, Citizens face a lower home price than foreigners. How about renters — do foreign renters endure higher cost? I would say arguably yes. My foreigner colleagues (Indians, Chinese, Koreans, not to mention Caucasians) mostly rent in condos. As a local, I’m more likely to rent in HDB.