I never said NYC isn't America but Singapore is a country. Hence, why I said what works for Singapore doesn't work for other countries. What worked for Norway hasn't worked for Venezuela despite both countries having vast resources of oil. It's much easier to run a homogenous country with just a few million citizens than it is to run 330 million people all being managed in different states with each state having their own separate values, tax structure, etc.,

NYCHA is proof that the governments suck at running stuff in America. It's also a cultural thing but I won't get into that. Singaporeans follow the laws very closely. NYC, not exactly the same. The government owns the property, leases it, and people are allowed to flip it. NYCHA doesn't have that, hence, people don't really care for their property which means people piss on the elevators, break stuff, don't clean, etc.,

I can assure you Singapore doesn't spend more than NYC on social programs. Again, the factor here seems to be money. NYC spends more than any city on social programs when you account for education, healthcare, etc., NYC spends $30k per student annually from K-12. No other country comes close. It's just inefficiently spent and a very corrupt government overall which you yourself highlighted. Thing is, Singapore manages a few million people. Brooklyn+Queens alone has a higher population than Singapore.

30% of a country's population being expat is tiny? Hmmmm...

New York could be a thousand miles from the Southern border but the drugs coming from the Southern border means you can easily transport those drugs to other states... I think YOU don't get it. Try transporting the drugs from Mexico or South/Central America to Singapore... You're telling me there isn't a difference? Once it gets past the Southern border, getting it to NY is the easy part because the logistics becomes much easier. The bottleneck is the border - not crossing state lines.

As for the homeless statistic, I said usually. The study you linked shows that it's high in areas with high housing prices. Again, caused by NIMBY's. If you're unfamiliar with that term, it's because people who own property with high valuations do not want their property prices to decline with more housing. Aka, artificially increase the price of housing. Many homeless people move to California because of the warm weather and lenient policies toward homelessness.

Anyways, I'm not here to slight Singapore. I loved visiting there. Not as much as Malaysia but the crime is low, food is pretty cheap, and it's very clean with great transportation. But what works for Singapore doesn't work for NYC. And what works for NYC, doesn't work for Singapore. You initiate policies based on what fits your people. I'm just saying the housing crisis in Singapore is due to a lack of land. The housing crisis in NYC is due to NIMBY's and politicians. You have NIMBY's who don't want high rise buildings because it blocks sunlight from entering their home and then environmentalists come out and start causing mayhem which means nothing gets built.