“You fall into a ditch easy and you crawl out hard.” Fifty-three years ago Singapore, the city nation which now has one of the world’s highest per capita incomes,  sent a delegation to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to see how to run a city.

People earned a living wage, there was a booming middle class, and the communities were kept clean trough a healthy pride valuing relationship above personal advancement. When Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore came to Phnom Penh, Cambodia in the 1960s, he made this comment: “I hope, one day, my city will look like this”.

In the next 19 years Cambodia would go from the most prosperous nation in Southeast Asia to the poorest country in the world. This is one of the world’s most phenomenal flip-flops. (For those interested, here is a link showing 1960 era Cambodian industry. It is long but worth a watch when you have time.)