To some extent, the authorities have addressed the squeeze on transport and other infrastructure caused by the increase in the population, but there is one area that has been overlooked.

The number of workers in the central business district (CBD) has increased over the years, but the number of hawker centres providing affordable food has not. For example, the Hill Street hawker centre was demolished years ago, but no replacement was built.

Lunch-time queues are getting longer at the CBD's remaining hawker centres, such as the ones in Amoy Street and Tanjong Pagar. With more people working in offices in this area, many in the queue are also buying multiple takeaway meals for their colleagues. This makes the lunch hour of most workers a rather frayed experience in which an inordinate amount of time is spent waiting. Compounding the squeeze is the common practice of "seat-choping" using anything from tissue packs to umbrellas. Quite often, these seats are unoccupied for quite some time

Hawker centres, especially those in the CBD, are designed for quick meals without fuss and those who cherish sitting together should look at other options.

If choping is disallowed, more seats will be freed up, and there is a greater chance of finding a place to sit and eat. A visual survey tells me that at any one time, easily a fifth of seats are without occupants and "reserved".

We all know there are no quick solutions to this. But I don't understand how our hawker centres can undergo multiple cycles of upgrading without any radical change to seating layouts to increase capacity.

Right now we have round tables with four or six seats. If one of the seats is vacant, the tendency for most people is not to join in. This often leaves four-seaters with three diners, and six-seaters with four or five diners.

Why not optimise the design and have diners seated at a long row, with the space for each diner clearly demarcated on the seat and table. That way, people will more readily take up each available seat.

Much as we don't like to think so, we're territorial animals. The starkness of placing one's belongings on a space clearly demarcated for another diner would deter the practice of choping seats. If we can't have more hawker centres, we should at the least maximise the capacity of those we have.

Peh Chwee Hoe