Cheng Sua Lai was a largely Chinese community, comprising mostly Hokkiens and Teochews. There were a few Malay and Indian families as well. Most villagers engaged in farming for a living. They grew vegetables, fruit and even orchids, and reared animals such as chickens, pigs, goats and fish.
There was very little infrastructural development in the kampung. Cheng San Road was little more than a laterite track and served to link Upper Thomson Road to Serangoon Gardens. British and Australian military personnel living in Serangoon Gardens sometimes used the track as a shortcut to get to military bases in Sembawang and Seletar. Many residences were not easily accessible and former villagers remember that during election periods in the 1960s, small aeroplanes would fly low over Cheng Sua Lai, drop campaign pamphlets over the settlement and play campaign slogans over loudspeakers.
In the 1970s, development of Ang Mo Kio new town took off and the villagers of Cheng Sua Lai were resettled to Toa Payoh and Ang Mo Kio. While the kampung no longer exists, its legacy lives on in the two town parks and in the place name "Cheng San".