Singapore

FT.com Can a nanny state really rock?:

Singapore has long been a city that expatriates in Asia either liked or lampooned. While living in Hong Kong in the 1990s, I admired Singapore as a model of urban planning even as I was amused by its nanny-state obsessions. On my first day on the island more than 10 years ago, the lead editorial in The Straits Times was on the need to be punctual. And if Orchard Road, Singapore's main thoroughfare, seemed like one of those irritating Ikea affairs that funnel you through the entire store in the hope that you might buy more, it was easy enough to escape.

Ten years on, the world has changed and become more like Singapore. Today, in New York's Times Square, the glitzy neon is so overpowering that it seems like an outsized stationary carousel with a few skyscrapers attached - exactly like Singapore's riverside financial and restaurant district, in fact. From New York to London to Kuala Lumpur, city centres are jammed with stores. At some level, we are all Singaporeans now."