Quora Answer: What Do You Think Singapore’s Vision Should be Since “Global City” No Longer Resonates among Singaporeans?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What do you think Singapore’s vision should be since the ‘global city’ idea no longer resonates among Singaporeans?”

Singapore has always been a trading centre, and now, a global financial centre.  It was, and is, a global city in that sense.  We cannot turn back the clock, rip up decades of policy, raze the city, and decide to be the potato-farming capital of the world.  In what way does it not resonate with Singaporeans?  And who are these Singaporeans?  Because, Singaporeans, in general, are not idiots.  There are pockets of morons, but that is a statistical reality we have to live with.

We built our nation by being open to the world.  No Singaporean can come forward and call for an absolute stop to immigration without looking like a hypocrite.  I was born in Singapore, but my ancestors were immigrants.  And that is almost every Singaporean.  We, above all nations, should be the most welcoming for immigrants, because we share that collective legacy.  The issue is no immigration, but integration, which is itself a policy issue.

We have a low total fertility rate, below replacement rate.  Unless Singaporeans are going to make procreation the national sport, we need the best and brightest to come here and make this country their home, so that we have a legacy of success to leave our children.