I'm glad we are allowed to discuss some politics in this forum.
The reason why Singaporean are living or investing in JB comes in the form of PUSH and PULL factors.
Both are the driving forces that created the situation that Singaporeans wants a piece of JB experience.
Politics will inevitable be a major part of the PUSH and PULL factors.
First of all I'm not against PAP. They are one of the best government in the world. One of the greatest accomplishment they have made that continue to impress me is their ability to attract foreign companies to invest in Singapore. Especially impressive is how Sg manage to attract big MNCs to setup their regional HQs, hubs etc. These are important because this will create QUALITY jobs.
I would also want to give credit PAP for creating some not so usual strategies that has worked well and against Singapore.
1. Importing lots of engineering/IT/technical workforce from developing countries.
This has displaced a lot of Singaporeans white collar workers. Many either moved to other industries or has to lower their salary.
However, this has created jobs for many blue collar workers. Blue collar workers that cannot be retrained to service and biomedical sector need to be continue to be employed. Remember just a decade ago, Singapore is a major manufacturing center for HDD, semi con etc. Gone are the days but who will take in these blue collar workers without the lure of availability of cheap engineers?
2. Casino. Although the earnings of casino is always featured in the headlines and awe many why they can earn so much. Some ask what kind of quality jobs does Casino creates? By simply looking at the direct job contribution by Casino is very little. Even though the promise of bringing in more tourist is a good reason but personally, I felt one of the benefit of bringing in Casino is to increase the competitiveness of our financial sector. Casino is a good place to do money laundering.
In the past, Singapore was able to attract a lot of FDI from Indonesia and Malaysia because a lot of ill gotten money are put here. Indonesia govt appeal many times to sg govt to repritiate these money back but Singapore just won't do it cos these money are GOOD money. Now imagine money from Indonesia and Malaysia can make our financial sector vibrant, think about the money from CHINA and INDIA??? U see, a lot of Chinese earned lots of illegal money in their country but worry about getting caught. So they have to send their child, wife(s) and money aboard. Singapore says, comeon, use our money laundering service (casino) to legalize the money, invest in our financial products, buy house here, keep your families here, study here and enjoy the party. Isn't it wonderful??
But I guess many already knows what are the side effect of these policies.