
The World's Richest City
Singapore has the highest concentration of millionaire households on earth, one in six with a net worth over a million dollars, and this 101 East report follows the money into the city-state's private banks, tax code, and gated addresses. Indian telecom tycoon Bhupendra Kumar Modi, Chinese film stars Gong Li and Jet Li, New Zealand billionaire Richard Chandler, and US investor Jim Rogers all show up as evidence of a broader migration: low taxes and a corruption-free government pulling the world's wealthy eastward as Asia's economic weight grows. The film then turns to the people the boom left behind, citing wages for Singapore's bottom fifth falling roughly ten percent over a decade while the top fifth's incomes rose about thirty percent. Reporters and residents lay out the resulting squeeze on housing, healthcare, and education costs, and weigh growing calls for a larger social safety net against a government reluctant to raise taxes. The report closes on an open question rather than a verdict: whether the arrangement that built Singapore's wealth can keep working for the people who did not get rich from it.