Foreigners find Singapore vibrant

Straits Times 30 Apr 10;

MOST foreigners are happy staying in Singapore and find the city state vibrant and exciting, and are attracted here by the clean and safe environment.

They even like the hot and humid climate in tropical Singapore, which they feel has its own distinctive character, with the greenery contributing strongly to its identity.

A lifestyle survey carried out by the Urban Redevelopment Authority and released on Friday, showed that most foreigners are generally satisfied with the top five facilities they mostly use - supermarket, shopping centres and shopping malls, financial services (banks and STM), coffeeshops, hawker centres and food courts, and restaurants and cafes.

Nearly 93 per cent of the respondents said they are satisfied or very satisfied with the living environment in Singapore, in terms of essential facilities such as health-care and transport, variety of housing types and design of residential environment.

Most of them prefer to live in the fringe of the city centre or in the city centre, with 93.2 per cent of them renting their homes and 6.8 per cent owning them.

The survey showed that 55.4 per cent of the foreign respondents prefer living in public to private housing, with three-room Housing Board flats and private condominiums being the most preferred housing types.

Most of the foreigners who placed their children in nurseries or childcare centres are satisfied with these facilities. For those with children above seven years, most of them send them to international schools.

Eight in 10 of them take some form of public transport to work .

They are also satisfied with the leisure environment in Singapore, in terms of the range of facilities and activities available.

The full report of the surveys is available on the URA website at at http://spring.ura.gov.sg/conceptplan2011.