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September 04, 2004

On media and decision making in Leijonakaupunki

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This is Nike ads in the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, pretty creative and quite impressive. Sorry, taken with low batery and shaky hands.

Not much has been happening lately, Kaitsu was at work and I was strugling with my creativity problems.. So.. More or less staring at the computer screen last couple of days. Also planning the Malaysia trip for next weekend, wondering whether we should make our lives easy and go with a package tour or go on our own and find that "special place"...

Reading papers - I still wonder how the decisions are done here in Leijonakaupunki, it seems that the papers just announce about changes in laws and regulations that come into action immediately. There's no sign of debate in the media, more reactions to somebody elses decisions. Extra maternity holiday - Yeah great! No holiday for the father - Uuuh.. bad.. But extra few days for the mother - yeah, great! Are you going to make babies now when you get attractive tax benefits? - yes, sure, we were just waiting for this. Now we can do it!

As if nobody really knows about these things before they are out in the papers. David, Kaj's friend says that Leijonakaupunki is an attempt to live an utopia. And somehow it works. It has elements of deep leftist socialism (cheap HDB apartments for people of certain age, young families can buy 4 room and more, singles up to 3 room apartments, but for 99 years only, you can not transfer the houses inside the family), far rightist (tax 5%, all oportunities for business, finding employment oportunities for retired people, for example 76 year olds - no kidding! it was in the paper!) and complete racial and cultural tolerance (in a town area or apartment house, the population has to be represented as it is in Leijonakaupunki: 70% chinese, 14% malay, 6% indian origin (tamil). So if there's too many indians living in one place, they don't sell or don't rent apartments for them anymore. In this way they try to avoid cultural segregation and ghettos. Amazing!

Posted by gkligyte at September 4, 2004 06:34 PM
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