Singapore’s public housing Source : www.gov.sg/
Dengue fever is a pressing threat in tropical regions, where high temperatures and frequent rainfall create ideal breeding grounds for Aedes vectors. In this article, Natacha Aveline-Dubach, Research Director (CNRS / Géographie-cités), and Raksha Mahtani (CNRS@CREATE) examine the concept of “mosquito burden”, defined as the cumulative effects of mosquito density, perceived dengue risk, and the discomfort associated with vector control policies in dengue-endemic countries.
Framed within Urban Political Ecology (UPE) and informed by a housing political economy beyond a Marxist lens, the study examines the interrelations between housing provision patterns, public health policies, and mosquito ecologies. It draws on a case study of Singapore’s public housing estates and private condominium enclaves to show how uneven socio-ecological housing conditions produce divergent patterns and intensities of mosquito burden experienced by residents, both between and within residential landscapes. The study employed 100 semi-structured and informal interviews with residents, 15 in-depth interviews with stakeholders engaged in mosquito management in public and private estates, and documentary analysis.
The study found that residents of public housing neighborhoods bore a particularly heavy mosquito burden, driven by high perceived exposure to breeding sites in both domestic and peridomestic spaces, compounded by intensive biosecurity measures, hypersurveillance, and the large-scale release of Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes. Low-floor residents bear a disproportionately high burden due to heightened exposure to pests and vector control measures. In contrast, condominium residents experience less vector-related discomfort, with their exclusive lifestyle maintained through minimal state intrusion and privately managed chemical fogging.
These disparities underscore the increasing contradictions in state policy that have emerged as Singapore’s economy has matured—between neoliberalised developmentalism and state commitments to housing equity, and between centralised vector control through direct state intervention and more fragmented approaches mediated by condominium management.
The public housing programme was placed under the authority of the Housing and Development Board (hereafter referred to as HDB), which was responsible for selling housing units to owner-occupants with a 99-year lease and providing them with discounted loans and public subsidies (Fig. 1). The state initiated the formation of a homeowner society early in the nation’s state-building process, starting in the mid-1960s. Throughout the initial period of Singapore’s export-led industrialisation, the public home-ownership programme was instrumental in bolstering growth by encouraging the establishment of multinational enterprises through competitive wages and a compliant working class (Chua, 2000).
Natacha Aveline-Dubach, Raksha Mahtani. Understanding Mosquito Burdens through an Urban Political Ecology of Singapore’s Residential Landscapes, Geoforum, Volume 169, 2026, 104511, ISSN 0016-7185, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104511.
