I’m deeply saddened to learn that Dr. Liu Thai Ker passed away on Saturday at 87.

For those who don’t know him, Liu Thai Ker transformed Singapore from a “Third World” city into one of the world’s most livable cities. When he joined the Housing & Development Board in 1969, much of Singapore’s population lived in conditions hard to imagine today. Fecal matter flowing down streets during heavy rain. Plastic sheets for roofs. Cramped, unsanitary kampongs with no running water.

Over the next two decades at HDB, he oversaw the planning and construction of 20 new towns and more than half a million housing units. That’s not just building apartments. He reimagined what public housing could be, creating what he called “self-sufficient new towns” with schools, clinics, markets, parks, and transport integrated from the start. The buildings themselves moved beyond purely functional blocks to thoughtfully designed neighborhoods. By the time he left HDB in 1989, Singapore’s homeownership rate had soared, and the housing estates he planned had become genuine inclusive communities.

He then moved to the Urban Redevelopment Authority as CEO and Chief Planner, where he made another crucial contribution. Singapore was aggressively demolishing its heritage districts under the original Concept Plan. In 1989, Liu introduced the Conservation Plan and stopped the bulldozers. Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam, the Singapore River shophouses—these neighborhoods survived because he recognized that a city needs memory alongside modernity.

I shared the stage with Dr. Liu several times in Singapore. What stayed with me was his warmth and extraordinary humility. You’d never know from talking to him that you were speaking with the man who literally built modern Singapore. He asked questions like someone still learning his craft, genuinely curious about what the evidence showed, what worked and what didn’t in other contexts. That intellectual generosity was striking.

His personal story shaped his vision. His father was the painter Liu Kang. Young Liu wanted to be an artist too, even bought a ticket on a freighter to study in China. His mother stopped him, convinced him to study architecture instead. In 1965, he took a job at HDB because he wanted to “change the fate of Singaporeans.” Those weren’t empty words. He’d lived the deprivation he was trying to eliminate.

Many cities try to copy Singapore’s model and fail because they miss how all the pieces fit together. You need the technical expertise, the institutional capacity, the political commitment, and the long view. Liu had all of it.

The development world lost a giant. I lost someone whose example reminded me why this work matters. Behind every master plan and policy framework are real families whose lives can be transformed by thoughtful, humane design. Liu never forgot that.

Rest in peace, Dr. Liu. Your legacy is built into the lives of millions.