I read Lion City because I had recently travelled to Singapore, and the place had already left a strange, sharp impression on me. The artificial trees at Gardens by the Bay were really nice, there was an airplane show while we were there, we went up one of the skyscrapers, and everywhere you could feel the city operating with unusual precision.
I also ate what may still be the worst tasting meatball of my life, which is impressive because it looked extremely tempting. Singapore gave me that kind of contrast: polished, efficient, controlled, visually seductive, and occasionally confusing in a very specific culinary way.
The book helped me understand more of what I had felt there. Singapore has an almost engineered quality: geography, trade, state capacity, education, housing, finance, logistics, global positioning. Everything seems tied to a practical question of survival and advantage.
The order is fascinating. It can be beautiful, and it can also feel heavy. Cameras everywhere, rules everywhere, competence everywhere. You walk around impressed, but also aware that this level of smoothness probably has a psychological cost.
I read it partly through a business lens too. Cities are platforms. They attract talent, capital, routines, standards, expectations, and entire styles of behavior. A well-run city changes what people believe is possible.
For me the book sits between travel memory, history, economics, and political psychology. It is about what happens when a small country decides that mediocrity is too dangerous to tolerate.