I've spent many years living in Singapore. People are very hard working, competitive, materialistic and status conscious. A combination which leads to long works hours and work-stress.

The fact that there's minimal social safety net, certainly doesn't help either.

I recall reading some studies that came to the same conclusions as above, but I don't have them handy at the moment.

I didn't know the safety net was minimal there. For whatever reason, I thought it was more like Western European countries.

Does that lead to a lot of homelessness and crime?

Panhandling is literally illegal, and I'm reasonably sure that anyone who's "homeless" gets picked up by the authorities and taken away somewhere. So it's hard to assess how common either is. That said, because the police are extremely effective at keeping out drugs, I don't think it's nearly as common as in America.

Regarding crime, Singapore is one of the safest in the world. A lot of that comes down to effective policing and extremely strict sentencing that puts criminals behind bars for a very long time.

Family ties are a lot stronger, so a lot of people falling on hard times do get substantial help from their family members. But there's minimal governmental safety net of the type you find in Western Europe.

Many jobs on offer in Singapore tend to be limited-time contractual. Also, there are no pensions. If you do get fired, it is not a large country with a lot of alternative opportunities.

On the other hand unemployment is 2% in Singapore vs 15% in Spain.

The insecure part may mean that there is almost no social protection. And the city changes so very frequently.