DitDA on 99% Invisible

By 1974, burial in land-limited Singapore had been outlawed at all but one cemetery. Cemeteries across the island were closed for burial. In decades that followed, over 70 cemeteries were cleared for development.

Development in land-scarce Singapore has been a series of consolidations—from sprawling villages to high-rise apartment buildings, and from sprawling cemeteries to multi-story columbariums. On the tiny island, land use is constantly being renegotiated—sometimes between the living and the dead. Listen to the episode to hear the unexpected story of how this exchange played out at Peck San Theng, a particularly fascinating 1970s cemetery-village-turned-housing development, .