The Incredible Density of Hong Kong
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- Опубликовано: 6 май 2023
- Hong Kong is one of those places, alongside Singapore and Manhattan, that often gets cited as a failure of urbanism - an overdose of density, an example of what you don’t want your city to look like. But there’s a reason Hong Kong is like this, and why other cities probably won’t end up the same way. We should stop using Hong Kong as our density punching bag.
References
2021 Hong Kong census (select "Major Housing Estates"): www.census2021.gov.hk/en/dist...
Estimate of Hong Kong density for developed area: www.fraserinstitute.org/sites...
Home size by country: shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-b...
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I love how this channel just seamlessly cuts through common misconceptions. No wordy fillers and overused stock footage. Just lots of useful information and good urbanist takes. Well done. 👏👏👏
Hong Kong style development is truly a walker’s paradise. You don’t have to wait for a bus for 10-15 min. There aren’t crazy drugged up people in the parks after dark. Central or Admiralty station on a Friday night is just an absolute sea of people like a concert getting out that keeps going for hours. Plus if you don’t want to go out out a lot of the newer estates are on top of malls with everything you need, connected to the metro with amenities.
yea but not necessarily everywhere in hong kong. some new towns have the problem of forcing pedestrians into pedestrian overpass system and enclosed private space(shopping malls) rather than on the streets. still walkable but not perfect
@@star24ize This is a very important observation. I have lived in Hong Kong for most of my life and am a huge fan of its density and what this means in terms of walkability, public transportation options, convenience, public safety etc, over the awful car-based suburban sprawl of most North American and Australasian cities (New York an honourable exception). However, your point on some new towns in Hong Kong forcing people into and through enclosed private spaces (shopping malls) is absolutely bang-on, particularly: Tung Chung, parts of Tin Shui Wai, some parts of Tuen Mun, some parts of Tsuen Wan, and almost all of Tseung Kwan O and Tiu Keng Leng. This isn't by accident - it's by design, and the result of property developers having too much political power and influence over development planning.
One thing I've notice is that even though Hong Kong is very walkable it isn't very bikeable. In many parts of Hong Kong the streets are relatively narrow and you only see vehicles on the roads and almost no people biking or using other small vehicles like skateboards, eboards, scooters etc.
You'd think a place like Hong Kong with such density would be the perfect place to get around on a bike, but instead its filled with cars with few people biking.
@@UzumakiNaruto_ my thought exactly. there are existing bike routes in hk but they’re (last time I check I haven’t been back for a while) mostly far away from main routes and city streets,more suitable for holiday and leisure riding. besides some hilly parts hk has great potential to build more biking infrastructure. hk island basically is perfect for biking along the harbor for example and it has been discussed for years. although the govt in recent years did a decent job turning the seafront into good public areas,there is difficulty in linking the hk island seafront with bike routes because of reclamation restriction.
@@UzumakiNaruto_ many electric micromobility options were outright illegal in hk (again last time I checked) and generally the drivers are quite hostile to bikers and those who advocate for more active travel opportunities calling them 路權撚(something like land rights scum) so you can see why many are discouraged
Unlike many other urbanism channels, your videos are always rich in information and analysis. I know a lot about urban planning, but whenever I watch your videos I always feel like I have learnt something new.
Love the video. As someone who grew up in Southeast Asia and lived in Portland, Oregon for a long while, Americans and Westerns usually make subjective comments when comparing cities. However, I can see the confusion as Anglophone's cities are very separated from the rest of the world. When people comparing densities with cities like Hong Kong or Tokyo, they bring up the "tiger-cage" euphemism for cramped apartments, but based on economic data, those who live in these apartments would essentially be absolutely homeless in the USA.
Think about it this way, zoning in Hong Kong at least allow them to have a roof over their heads, while in the US they will likely be in tents.
No one living in a ridiculously small hole in a city is trapped there, they could move out overnight somewhere out of the way to pay much less for way more space. They just choose not to, because the benefits of living in that city outweigh the downsides.
@@hylje That's a good point! It's ironic since people in Hong Kong have a lot of choices for residence compared to those similar to their situations in the Anglophone countries, not just the US. Another point is that these countries follow the Common Law system that prioritizes private single home ownership, so housing crises are most severe in countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, and of course the UK.
@@hylje It's a little bit more complicated. Telling people to just move away from the city they lived for their whole life is not a solution. Although many are doing that, it still depends on the person's competitiveness in the job market. Not everyone can afford to fail. Language, cultural difference all make them less likely to get a job oversea.
And imagine the hurdle they would face if all they think about is how to afford the next meal, they won't have the mental capacity to think about how to live better in another country.
@@li_tsz_fung As I said, the benefits outweigh the downsides. Not everyone is blessed with fortune and have to make do with what they have.
The only humane development is to build so much that they can live in a bigger, more comfortable home in the same city, neighbourhood even without paying a cent more. To regulate these tiny holes into oblivion just means the people living in them are forced to move away and make drastic changes they do not elect to make, nor are they ready for. That is not humane.
@@tonysoviet3692 , but Hong Kong is the most unaffordable city for the residents. Vancouver is close by, but average resident of HK spending greater portion of disposable income on housing. At the same time, Singapore has a greater population density than Hong Kong, but relatively low affordability issues.
As someone who moved from HK to Vancouver, people have told me that line "we don't want to become Hong Kong" and I said, "I moved here precisely because it's the closest thing to HK in North America!" HK is awesome and we should be more like it and learn from their many great examples from transit to mixed use development, the list goes on. Not sure how people use HK as a bad example, I use it as the benchmark.
Hong Kong works because the people there are largely friendly and peaceful which makes it easier to share space with. It wouldn't work in many places where people are violent and criminal and generally behaving badly. In that case living in such close quarters, these places would quickly become violent ghettos that people would be wanting to escape from.
@@UzumakiNaruto_ I've traveled all over the world and learned that wherever I go, people are people. The notion that a group of people or culture can be more violent than another is untrue. It's largely a failure of government or economic circumstances. Fix that and you fix the violence. Trust me, all people want to live in peace and harmony and have safe places for their families to grow and thrive. The tenets of HKs approach to urbanism has lessons that would work anywhere, but some of those lessons include strong social support for the disenfranchised which are foundational to a peaceful society.
@@ericquest1802
*I've traveled all over the world and learned that wherever I go, people are people. The notion that a group of people or culture can be more violent than another is untrue. It's largely a failure of government or economic circumstances.*
I agree that in general most people are decent and usually peaceful, but you have to be lying to yourself to not look the world and even your nightly news in Toronto and see that there's one or two groups of people that's FAR AND AWAY more violence and criminal than any other group of people and it has little to do with poverty or 'the government failing them'.
This is the result of stupid life choices and little desire to hold these people accountable for fear of being called 'racist' and having your career and even personal life possibly be completely ruined. Better to just do nothing and agree with whatever narrative this group of people are pushing than to have the courage to stand up and hold them responsible for their actions and the actions of their kids.
Maybe if we had any leaders who had the balls to do that and punish perpetrators with actual harsh penalties then all the crime and violence we see in the GTA would actually decline instead of getting progressively worse. However these days even accused of being 'racist' or discriminatory is often enough to land you in plenty of trouble and even end your livelihood so everyone will continue to do nothing and the general public will continue to silently suffer.
*The tenets of HKs approach to urbanism has lessons that would work anywhere, but some of those lessons include strong social support for the disenfranchised which are foundational to a peaceful society.*
The foundations of any peaceful civilized society is the majority of people having a desire to live peacefully and treating their fellow man with respect and compassion and having willingness to work together with others to build something better that benefits everyone. Also important is the ability for people to restrain themselves from acting out in violence and anger everytime someone does or says something that they don't like.
If you can't have people with these basic things in place then nothing else matters when it comes to trying to build a civilized, peaceful society to live in.
As we've seen through human history some races/ethnicities are far more able to accomplish this than other races/ethnic groups of people and as a result we see the vast differences between successful societies and those that are in constant disorder and chaos.
@@UzumakiNaruto_ You had me until that last part. I agree that prosecuting criminals and sufficient jail time that fits the crime is necessary. HK for example has much harsher penalties than Canada on this front and it's not hard and fast but I think the right answer is somewhere between the two extremes. Your final paragraph however is straight racism and I disagree, not sure what's caused you to believe such a falsehood, but there are many confounders such as government, economics, education, the list goes on and on, which you can't easily separate to make such a blanket statement that "some races are more able to accomplish..." Not sure how to un-convince you of this, it's probably ingrained in your beliefs.
@@ericquest1802
*You had me until that last part. I agree that prosecuting criminals and sufficient jail time that fits the crime is necessary. HK for example has much harsher penalties than Canada on this front and it's not hard and fast but I think the right answer is somewhere between the two extremes.*
I think for more violent crimes you have to go much harder than Canada currently does. Some people will never change and you need to put them away for a very long time if not forever and others may only change if they see harsh punishment being dealt out for violent crimes that harm or even kill people. Some people NEED to see consequences before they might even consider changing their ways.
*Your final paragraph however is straight racism and I disagree, not sure what's caused you to believe such a falsehood, but there are many confounders such as government, economics, education, the list goes on and on, which you can't easily separate to make such a blanket statement that "some races are more able to accomplish..."*
How is it 'straight racism' when you see the facts before you every single day? Whether it be internationally or here at home you can easily see how some groups of people can do alot with very little and others can do almost nothing despite tons of help. Some groups of people require relatively little supervision to keep them in line and not get out of hand and other groups require high amounts of supervision just to prevent them from destroying your neighborhood, city or nation.
These are the kind of problems that people DO NOT want to deal with because its 'too difficult' and will definitely cause controversy because most people would like to believe that everyone is 'equal' where if you give everyone the same starting point in life that most will turn out largely the same and clearly this isn't true and it starts from the home and how some groups of people don't seem to care and/or have any clue as to how to raise their children to be peaceful, decent human beings who can grow up to be hard working, law abiding individuals.
Some people like to always blame the government or 'the system' for 'not doing enough' to help them and 'failing them' without EVER wanting to look at themselves and taking at least some responsibility for their own actions and realizing how self-destructive their behaviors are and then having the courage to acknowledge their problems and actually DO SOMETHING about it and taking drastic measures rather than doing the easy thing and calling everyone who *GASP* DARES to criticise them as being racist, intolerant and discriminatory.
Some groups of people will almost always refuse to admit doing anything wrong and/or blame someone else for 'making them that way' rather than taking responsibility for their own actions and then making the necessary changes no matter how painful to fix a problem for the long term.
I don't understand why "too dense" itself is an issue, instead of talking about if the infrastructure of the city can support it. If you look at say Toronto near a subway line, versus pretty much anywhere in Markham, then Markham looks too dense in terms of getting around, even though the actual population density is a lot lower
Huh, soo like levels of service but it includes public transit in mind? cool!
@@yukko_parra yup, although the issues with Markham aren't limited to public transit. It's really an example of taking a small town and just cramming houses everywhere without thinking about updating the rest of the infrastructure
Interesting planning fact about Markham, the downtown they're building will be home to approx. 125,000 people when it's all built out, giving that area the same density as Manhattan.
@@carlinthomas9482I do believe many suburbs of Toronto are on track to attempting to correct a lot of their infrastructure issues. This is a prime example as I’ve noticed Markham turning toward transit development and building around that. Vaughan and Mississauga too!
Exactly, imagine these high rise towers (4:35) replacing the surrounding old mid-rise developments on the right. They could probably double the population but still have more space for parks and a network of bike paths, and make a new metro line possible. And they definitely can build bigger apartments. That one is not the question of whether they "can", it's just the terrible market situation we have here. And the government is still building smaller apartments for public housing compared to 20 years ago. Giving no incentive for changes in private developments
I'm a hong konger who now lives elsewhere and i'm a big fan of your channel,it taught me a lot about urbanism in other countries! There really isn't any place quite like hong kong with its high density (from that comes good public transport and convenience city living) and proximity to nature (true preserved nature not artificial landscape) And likewise i always roll my eyes when hearing people in low density cities saying increasing density means being as crowded as hk. You guys have much room for densification before even remotely resembling that of hk. Btw if you happen to see this comment, can i suggest you guys to talk about accessibility (not the one about disability) and how we can study it in your coming videos? I think accessibility is a great framework for people to think about good urbanism but popular urbanist discourse doesn't go deeper than just mentioning ideas like 15 minute city. (e,g modal difference in travel time, job and amenities accessibility,tools or metrics we can use other than basic isochrone/walkscore)
Indeed, proximity to nature is a unique part of Hong Kong's density. Not surprisingly, I feel more remote from nature in a suburban part of Toronto than I was in Hong Kong.
Have you been to Singapore?
great idea. Accessibility should be talked more when it comes to urbanism and 15 minute cities specially because the average population age in most developed countries is shifting to become much older in the coming decades due to population growth decreasing meaning more seniors to take care of.
accessibility is a huge advantage of skyscraper cities like HK, where elevator access or parallel ramps can be expected on most buildings and pathways. The best part is, because of scale, the overall cost per user can reach parity with the inaccessible low rises of "missing middle" cities. The aesthetics and familiarity of low rise developments comes with a real human cost
@yan-Deriction , when land value is over 90% of total cost, the cost of accessibility infrastructure is negligible even for low rises. It is a shame, that it is not a default for all new construction.
Not to mention Hong Kong has some unique architecture! The HSBC Building in particular has a fascinating design for a skyscraper. In Hong Kong (and ancient China), there's a practice called feng shui about arranging the pieces in living spaces to create balance with the natural world. For good feng shui, in Hong Kong, skyscrapers are designed with holes called "dragon gates" to allow dragons to fly from the mountains to the sea every day, thus allowing positive energy flow through the building.
But when the neighboring Bank of China Tower by IM Pei was constructed, there was nothing but negative energy flow as feng shui principles were ignored. HK Governor Youde died in 1986 in Beijing from a heart attack, and Hong Kongers blamed the building for this since it overlooked Government House. So to fend off the negative feng shui from the Bank of China Tower and protect the HSBC Building, two cannon-like cranes were constructed to point towards it.
u everywhere
sometimes feng shui does make sense - you wouldn't want to live next to an open sewer
And that's just the density of Hong Kong! Neighboring Macau, China's other SAR, on the other hand is even denser! Macau is the most densely populated country/dependency in the world as over 680,000 people live in an area that's just 12.7 square miles/32.9 square kilometers! Most of these people live on just the Macau Peninsula (3.3 square miles/8.5 square kilometers), where urban development is concentrated. And two-thirds of its area is reclaimed land! Coloane and Taipa used to be two separate islands, but they've since been combined together thanks to the late Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands who wanted to replicate the success of the Las Vegas Strip. Macau's gambling industry is seven times larger than Las Vegas!
A part of Hong Kong's success is of course its transit infrastructure. The city's famous trams, and the MTR for the rest of HK. The MTR and its quality make many in North American cities jealous. When a transit system actually cares so much about being on-time, and can be used for so much and relied upon whether it's for shopping or to go directly to the airport, then that's a transit system done right. And the MTR is actually helping Macau build and operate a transit system, the Macau LRT, as Macau continues to urbanize and grow.
You mean its money laundering industry
Once I realised that more density means more lively streets, more people to support local businesses like stores, restaurants and public pools as well as just more people that might share similar interests to yourself I started seeing it as an undisputed win. It also makes public transit better with more frequency as a result of higher ridership.
The new developments with mall upon mall connected with grade separation makes for depressing streets.
The developers and planners were not for lively streets.
And also cheaper public transportation!
@@uwotmate-d3m the availability of choices
The thing is, Hong Kong really isn't a bad place to live, housing crisis excluded. Most apartments are fairly nice inside (man, the views) and the culture I grew to enjoy was around spending very little of your time in your home. There's so much to do around you and plenty of public or semi-public places to relax, and you don't even really need a kitchen if you don't love cooking. It's often cheaper to eat out anyways. After having to move, I looked for a city like it but came up short. I really miss HK.
100%
the realisation of le corbusier urbanisme
blame the english who r racists..the red devils living at mid-level n peak left the residents lived at the bottom of hong kong in slums n cages...fighting amongst themselves for space to shelter...the very poor lived in boats....in 1978hk chinese took over from the british 2 build mass housing fit 4 rats.... kowloon city was a squatters' no men's land colony..n population grew n hsg shortage became more acute...n obscene /greedy develpers control the govt n make themselves firlthy rich
I'm not sure which apartments you've seen in HK but most are not nice inside; if you're on a low income and haven't yet received public housing (the waiting list is around 5.5 years long) then your apartment is likely to be bad on a Dickensian level. I've seen young, well educated, white collar professionals live in subdivided flats barely bigger than a double bed located in terribly old run down buildings. For them, life in HK is pretty sad.
@@poshbo don't pretend u know hk hsg....just by watching from distance of yr.armchair...I LIVE IN HK...u NO...hv. u been invited to hkees' homes for dinner ??..yes? NO ?'cse the flat has no kitchen just a gas burner----no dining table...a 400 sq. feet old flat house 2 adults n 3 kids...with no lifts n shared community kitchen+wc....
Finally..........there is a video mentioned MOUNTAINS in Hong Kong ....
cool mountains
I spent most of a summer in grad school in Hong Kong and loved it. It’s really what got me to appreciate walkable neighborhoods with ubiquitous transit.
The problem of Hong Kong for me as I grew up there and never want to return is that Hong Kong is an extremely capitalistic place and has a winner takes it all culture. Apartment prices are extremely high compared to how much people are making. If you grew up in Hong Kong (not as a foreign born person) below or equal to a lower middle income class family, you would have a very difficult time accumulating wealth without your folks paying the down payment for your apartment. The infrastructure Hong Kong has is a bare minimum necessity for a place with such high density.
Capitalism is not for weak hearted and lazy people. You obviously prefer a Nanny Socialistic state where you want to rely on a government pension and welfare
"High density" in Hong Kong has its pros and cons.
pros: cheap and high speed broadband, cheap electricity and gas, cheap and highly efficient public transport, vibrant street scene, convenience
cons: clamp living space, skyrocket home price, crowded streets
Cited as a failure of urbanism? But from Hong Kong's point of view, the endless urban sprawl and absolute dependence on car ownership for decent travel even within the city, seen in many cities in US, particularly Los Angeles, would be instead considered a failure of urbanism.
I’ve lived happily in the most dense parts of HK for the last 29 years. Happy that everything is close by. Happy that I don’t need (and have never had) a vehicle. If I need an escape, the hills are close by and I just have to walk up them.
I love how people equate dense with congestion because living in Hong Kong all my life, I have never experienced a more congested afternoon than a random Tuesday in LA.
how about small rural roads that basically shut down whenever everyone in the county try to go out at the same time 😂
congestion is mainly a land use issue, mixed use zones, transportation infrastructure etc
People who complain about congestion are the ones causing it. They are the ones that always have to drive somewhere because they live far away from the more dense areas of the city but want to take advantage of the lifestyle it creates. Then they blame the people who live in apartments downtown? The restaurants these suburbanites want to go to is 2 blocks from my place, I'm not blocking up the roads driving there because it's a 5 minute walk.
And why is that? Is it because Hong Kong have great public transport or because Hong Kong have great protected bike lane?
@@anubizz3 Hong Kong doesnt have protected bike lanes in city areas, they are mainly the suburbs. The public transport is pretty great even though we still got some congestion in rush hours. But the train system is pretty great like practically covers 90% of the places you need to go and can you from any part to the heart of the city in like 30 minutes or so. But mostly because every area has everything you need to have practically. Unless you travel for work, you can do everything from shopping groceries to shopping in a mall to government stuff in within like 30-45 minutes walking radius, and if you dont wanna walk that long, there’s also the minibus system that helps you with short distance travel.
@@auwanho Bingo, that's why we need to give middle finger to this urbanist that want protected bikeline over public transport..
I am a Hong Konger. I find it funny that people are concerning about density, which we never regard it as a problem. The only issue of Hong Kong is the unbelievablely unaffordable price of a flat. People usually live at fu*king small apartment because we cannot afford the price. We always complain about the price but not the density.
Other than the apartment price (and eroding freedom and police brutality), everything is convenient and good.
Here is what living in Hong Kong looks like. People usually don't need a car. We can buy groceries, food and most of the thing just downstair. Shops opens everyday and opens until midnight. There are tons of restaurants around, so many people choose to go to restaurant instead of cooking. For those who cook, they just buy fresh food every day (not every week). In the weekend, we can go to mountains and beaches within 1-2 hours by public transport. You don't need to spend half day driving in order to access to the nature.
Why can't we have both?
I don't want to buy food everyday. I want room to cook. I want room to store meals I'm preparing. I don't want to live in the sky surrounded by people above and below me. I'm not a sardine and I don't want to be packed into a box like one.
As a HKer, I also agree. I'll be honest, apart from the overpriced housing problem, there aren't any other problem with the city, everything else in fact is quite perfect, especially the transport. Actually, I think solving HK's housing will also help with a lot of other problems, such as easing social tensions, alleviating people's stress level etc. So if our housing problem is solved, its quite close to perfect
The biggest problem with Hong Kong is not the sheer density, but the lack of choice.
In other countries, if you're priced out, you can move into the suburbs.
Hong Kongers who are priced out generally cannot move out, unless moving into neighbouring Guangdong Province in mainland China is considered an option with its drastically different society, laws, environment and even language barrier.
"American-style suburbs"? Not even all of the billionaires can afford detached houses. Most of the wealthy live in highrises, of course they are nicer highrises.
These problems are unique to city-state-type territories. Singapore is a very well-managed example; government control is omni-present at every level of society but housing needs are met. Hong Kong is a hyper-capitalist small-government business paradise, and the lack of sufficient housing controls forces the poor into smaller and smaller coffins.
Better than Monaco where most of its citizens live in France because they can't afford the rent.
And another point I feel like is missing from this video of reason why Hong Kong developed into such high density is our low chance of having major natural disaster compare to most places. As a Hongkonger, the worst natural disaster that most of us ever experienced is Typhoon T10 here. Hong Kong sit on a quite blessed area which most hurricane would not hit Hong Kong directly, strong earth quake is almost unheard of, floods usually only affect specific area and wild fire cases are rare due to how humid Hong Kong usually is.
Since we HongKonger only really need to deal with one type of natural disaster, everyone in the city already know how and what to prepare for Typhoon T10. Beside, Typhoon T10s are not even that strong compare to a direct hurricane and tornado. Because of it, most city building project can be built as close and tall as they are without worrying about the force of nature.
I think that the density is what makes Hong Kong special , well rent doesn’t come cheap I always had liked my restaurants just below me , HK also has many hiking trails and greenery to give you if city isn’t your vibe . It’s like the only city I could survive 1 year in without travelling , HK has it all .
Dang we got dual narrators. This is pretty slick i like it a lot. No one else is doing this. its like Mobb Deep. Or like Method Man and Redman in "how high"
Haha.
Give me high density, walkable vibrant neighbours over car dependent lifeless suburbia any day.
HK mountains and landscape is pretty awesome too!
IF we did build the Hong Kongs across europe , think of how much space we could free up for forest & farming. Think of how many people could live without cars : shops , work & leisure within the same block, ( the difference not having misserable car journeys between these things). public transport to take people to the countryside.
Hong Kong is also pretty much dead center in one of the densest population regions on the entire planet. It has mainland China to the North, Philippines Vietnam and Indonesia to the South, Korea and Japan to the Northeast, India to the West. It's central position and status as part of the British Empire allowed it to essentially become a trading nexus between Southeast Asia and the entire anglosphere and Europe, as well as a central trading node within Southeast Asia.
It's basically impossible to replicate something like that anywhere else in the world. The closest examples I can think of are tax havens like Monaco, but the tax pressure from the EU is nothing compared to the economic and political pressure exerted by China in the 20th century.
Hong Kong's high density allows it to achieve unparalleled outcomes in public health and safety (crime, crashes, natural disasters).
Anytime someone wants to cite the "better" performance of a European city, my response is to ask if there is an equal or larger sized district in Hong Kong that achieves these outcomes in a scalable way. Anti Hongkongism is mainly a mix of politics, personal preference and aesthetics. HK urbanism objectively produces incredible outcomes that we should definitely try to replicate more of in North America.
*Hong Kong's high density allows it to achieve unparalleled outcomes in public health and safety (crime, crashes, natural disasters).*
That has more to do with the people living there than anything else. Not every race/ethnic group of people could live in such a city and achieve the same things especially when it comes to low levels of crime and violence.
@@UzumakiNaruto_ Racist nonsense, shame on you.
@@duckmercy11
People like you ALWAYS call others 'racist' and then if some told you to live with the very people you're defending, you would 100% say NO because you're a hypocrite that knows what would happen if you did.
Too dense is an issue but in Hong Kong its not the fault of some flawed design philosophy but the restrictive supply of developable land. The British colonized these tiny mountainous islands for a small trading post yet it had to grow into a metropolis. With the conditions it was handed Hong Kong developed some very creative land use and mixed-use high density designs like vertically integrated TODs with residential and commercial spaces built right over transit infrastructure.
But also Hong Kong faces various challenges that come with the high density it is forced to build at:
Things like Walled Buildings "屏風樓" where massing of highrise apartments obstruct and compress natural flows of wind causing ventilation problems as well as shadowing;
Oversized Superblocks like the Union Square TOD development above MTR Kowloon 九龍站 Station obstructing the small streets urban fabric and being unfriendly to pedestrians;
Mallification of pedestrian corridors overly commercializing city space and forcing pedestrians to go through malls;
Cage homes "籠屋" and rising homelessness especially amongst immigrants that come with extreme unaffordability and slow social housing projects;
Fatal lack of green or open space in urban centers.
However there are so many things to learn from the ingenious solutions that came with Hong Kong's extreme challenges:
An expansive network of covered pedestrian overpass and underpass that links transit, commercial, etc. omplexes that extends coverage of transit and protect against the weather;
Extremely integrated TOD developments 上蓋開發 that allows efficient development directly above MTR stations, train depots, and rail corridors;
Mixed-use superblock 綜合體 that combined MTR stations, bus terminals, car parks, commercial spaces, malls, schools, and residential highrise in one coherent development;
Lively streets that hosts huge ranges of activities;
Introduction of wind corridor and view corridor considerations in urban planning;
Buses and even trams are double decked;
but it's not just urban design that causes this density, it's the fiscal system. As the video mentions, the HK government relies heavily on property related revenue, rather than direct taxation. The government owns basically all the land and periodically auctions off plots to developers; whoever pays the higher price wins the auction and the governments receives a big chunk of cash.
For this system to work property prices must remain high; if prices drop then HK government revenue from land auctions will also drop. So the government has an incentive to keep prices high and implements policies which favour property developers and help them keep prices high, such as allowing developers to buy a plot of land and hold onto it without developing by a certain deadline. This creates "landbanks" which soak up supply and inflate prices. Rising property prices also inflate the wealth of HKers who already have properties; that's why those HKers typically oppose the building of more public housing flats.
The reasons why HK has this strange fiscal system reliant on property are complicated but one big reason is that HK, as a British colony, was designed to be a trading colony for extracting value to the benefit of Britain. Creating good living conditions for the local Chinese wasn't a high priority. And post 1997 this system hasn't really changed.
@@poshbo you’ve hit HK on the head. People talk about how Britain did this and China did that but if you take away all the geopolitical disputes, it boils down to Hong Kong being run like the same colony that it used to be. The boss changed, the world changed, but HK’s entire socioeconomic structure did not. And that’s what’s sad about HK. It’s stuck unable to keep up with China and the world, because it keeps trying to relive the 1980s.
@@canto_v12 agreed, since the 80s the Mainland has become far more competitive so HK now has only 4 truly competitive industries: 1) finance, 2) trade and shipping, 3) property development and 4) retail and tourism. So if you don't have a highly paid job in one of those industries and instead have an ordinary job with ordinary wages, then the relative cost of living becomes exorbitant.
And because HK has so many vested interests it becomes difficult to reform the economy and property model. The GBA integration is Beijing's plan for reform but whether it truly takes off is yet to be seen.
But HK is far from the only place with inflated property prices. I grew up in Australia where property is also super expensive. One major factor for this is the significant tax incentives which benefit property investors and artificially inflate prices. But despite almost everybody acknowledging that there is a "cost of living crisis", no government wants to wind back those tax benefits since doing so would be electoral suicide. Too many people have a vested interest in keeping property prices high for the system to change.
@@poshbo I remember HK faced big protests when it proposed a consumption tax, which would've reduced its gov't reliance on land sales & taxes for revenue (meanwhile in Singapore (SG) the consumption tax contributes to a whopping 1/3 of the gov't revenue). Singapore also prevents property developers from creating landbanks by charging a 35-40% stamp duty if a plot of land bought by a developer to build apartment units on doesn't have all its units built & sold within 5 yrs of the land's purchase, though its slightly ironic that some public housing apartments now take longer than 5 yrs to be built (probably delayed by the pandemic leading to construction workers being locked down in their dormitories). A side effect of this stamp duty though is that property developers shy away from building larger developments as they take longer to build & also longer for all the apartment units to be sold, & thus more likely to take more than 5 yrs.
Absolute banger video!
Amazing video as always! I’m glad you covered this, density in Asia even outside of Hong Kong is quite interesting. Having traveled from the US to other countries it’s still Asia that really got me to say that it’s a big city haha.
Also I’m glad you discussed something very thoughtful as many MANY “urbanism” channels have talked about Hong Kong but only because of scale or in a negative matter. So it’s refreshing to hear this much more neutral and creative approach about it
I wish so much we, nyc, would build like hong kong. We need so much more housing
But Hong Kong is very far from meeting it's own housing needs.
Everytime Americans or any anglophone see a building that higher than 3 stories, they always translated it into ultra dense Hongkong-tier cage housing.
Greatly thought video
I've lived in HK 18 years, my last flat was in a complex of 13 towers, all 64 floors with 8 flats each floor. Currently though I live in a traditional village on top floor of a village house in the middle of forest on Lantau
Great video but I am confused about the relevance of apartment sizes. If you have an accurate count of population and an accurate measure of the land area they live on, you don’t need to know anything about the sizes of individual apartments to calculate density. I think I must have missed the intended point of that bit of the video.
Thanks for your share
Those high tower density is a nice example how much people underestimate the third dimension when it comes to density. (Especially in space ship design ;))
I think Hong Kong is a little too dense. The city is so closed to being perfect. If only every apartment is about 300 square feet bigger, and the property price is about 30% cheaper, (and maybe if it has LA's climate too). (I understand that this is kind of a pipedream).
Climate's pretty good already. Usually room temperature or slightly warmer
@@planefan082 it's pretty good. I just think it's a little bit too hot and humid during summer.
if property price is 30% cheaper then the tax rate would probably need to triple lol
People who say they don't want their city/town to become like Hong Kong has most likely never lived in or even visited Hong Kong. New York City and Hong Kong are roughly the same size with similar population, but since Hong Kong has such a wide dichotomy of densities, it has a much more diverse range of communities from rural village to town to metropolitan all within an hour car drive. NYC, on the other hand, is all the same concrete grid with towers and houses. Imagine NYC, but Manhattan has the density of Northern Hong Kong Island and Kowloon (city center), but the rest of the boroughs are lush forests with small towns, independent farming communities, fishing villages, and a few sprinkling of ultra-dense/ultra-tall 'suburban' high rise estates.
I am from Southern California, and when the state decided to change some zoning Hong Kong is the first thing people started screaming. They forget about “historic areas” with walkable streets that have a higher density that look nothing like Hong Kong.
Also, Hong Kong does not have traffic jams, like the ones you see during rush hour in most North American cities, despite being so much denser!
What in the world… of course there are traffic jams. Ironically, maybe more on weekends when those with cars go joyriding than on weekday mornings.
The funny thing is, the traffic jam is all underground and on the sidewalks. Car traffic is relatively tame, still a remarkable feat.
It’s interesting how people hate on high density yet it makes cities more sustainable and walkable (which imo is always better). Part of the beauty of HK is how easy it is to get around, plus the fact there’re so many areas natural land that are beautiful.
Obviously if taken to the extreme it can cause crowding, which isn’t good. But like you put so well in this video, that’s an extreme that most cities aren’t likely to reach. Having lived in London, I can tell you that’s never going to happy - it’s a city spread out over a pretty flat river plain (with the odd small hill) and it’s streets dominated by Victorian terraced houses. They’re mid-level and tend to sit at 2-4 floors. Changing this would involve demolishing swathes of old buildings, which I cannot imagine happening any time soon
You mention Kowloon, and I think Strong Towns gives us the best way to think of Density as it is just an Amplifier not an inherent good or bad, it can make good urbanism better, but makes bad urbanism worse.
Like Densifying US Suburbia will be bad, because the lack of mixed use and Dendritic street layouts will make traffic worse, and will overload the infrastructure. Or in the case of Kowloon or other slums, density just amplifies the problems of poverty.
However making a place like a wealthy town or district with a well connected street network and alot of good infrastructure and mixed use, more dense it would be a good thing and improve the area.
Isn’t the problem with being spread too thin what we have in most North American cities? When you encourage low density to serve a specific place, you get places like Toronto where so much of the infrastructure is focused on getting non-residents in which creates the look of “overcrowding” which is simply too many individuals entering via a personal vehicle. The whole purpose of building up a city helps isolate infrastructure needs so that you can create multiple efficient options for movement in that space. And I’m sure each of the examples you guys used for overcrowding are examples of what I’m saying.
Great video as always!
Maybe South Korea and Vietnam have some similar dynamics. Each country is 80-90% mountains with limited space to develop housing (not too mention farming and manufacturing). Maybe Busan(SK) and Hanoi(VN) have similar density and restrictions due to limited land availability.
Thanks! How about Tokyo, Seoul, and Singapore?
My aunt, who regularly hosts dinner parties for extended family, recently returned from a monthlong church mission in Hong Kong, and she observed that homes for average income families are far too small for hosting gatherings; therefore she could never want to live in such a city.
Can anybody tell me whre the cover of this video is, please?
Mountains in Hong Kong are like a few minutes of walk away, even from the city centre which are good places where you can relax
Fun fact: there's a place in Hong Kong called Mong Kok (旺角), which literally translates to crowded place
In my experience, the concept "I don't want us to turn into Hong Kong" is always used temporally close to the idea of stopping immigration.
Meanwhile Singapore's plan is probably to raise its population to almost 7m people by 2030 (achieving a population density of almost 10000 people/km^2) by immigration if birth rates don't catch up, probably seen as a way to keep the economy growing amid an ageing population. The ruling political party was bold enough to dismiss a watered-down plan by an opposition party as 'irresponsible', while critics of the plan (due to overpopulation concerns) were shot back with arguments like "Is the Singaporean life supposed to be easy?"
The arnold schwarzenegger comparison comment was genius. I’ll be using it in the future
People are subjective about Hong Kong. If you grew up in suburbia, you might think it's the best mode of living. However, Hong Kong is much better than many northamerican cities in two respects: 1) almost everything is in walking distance in Hong Kong; 2) nature reserves with stunning hiking trails are only minutes away from *any point* in Hong Kong.
@@WillmobilePlus , only if you are poor. And, at least, those people have a roof, unlike American homeless.
Poverty and inequality can definitely contribute to the superdensification of some cities. A certain Brazilian coastal city has countless high-rises next to the beaches. And the indian city of Mumbai is very rich in skyscrapers as well... and slums.
I think Monaco would be an interesting case study for a video like this. The nation is only 2 km2 in size, yet has an astounding population density of 18,343 per km2. Yet despite the density, it's also considered the wealthiest nations on the planet. So wealthy though, that it's also insanely expensive to live there.
Because all the poorer people live just outside the borders, in France.
Monaco is mostly a giant tax haven for the rich of Europe whose rich citizens don't actually spend that much time in Monaco and likely have much bigger homes elsewhere. They just buy a crazy expensive and small apartment in Monaco and live there for the minimum amount of time to fulfill residency requirements. Most people working everyday jobs in Monaco live in France and cross the border for work every day.
Most of Monaco's residents are wealthy foreigners as the poorer locals live in France.
Seems like density worry comes from people who own single family homes, that want to live in neighborhoods of single family homes and don't have any understanding, or simply don't care, about how their desires have a negative impact on the municipality and the community. Single family home suburbs likely only exist because they are artificially zoned and marketed to be that way and wouldn't exist otherwise.
Due to the urban area and city-development of Hong Kong, citizens in Hong Kong can have short travel time for reaching their work place, to country-park, beaches from work-places, entertainments, says around 30 minutes, can't compare to western countries.
Also, as high density of people, the transportation can have enough volume of people to serve in frequent services, such as MTR in rush hour with 2 mins per train, some high demand bus routes also 2-3 mins for next bus, etc.
In Australia, we have 3.4 people squeezed into every square kilometer.
Yup good if you are kangaroo don't need much water. And have one of the most unaffordable house prices ???!!! NO REPLY READ.
What town was that footage during the end-credits?
Montreal: Quai de l'Horloge
Are u going to do more Asian cities in the future? 😁
I would take Tokyo that is less dense but walkable. Or even the Tokyo suburbs or smaller Japanese cities which are less dense but still walkable.
It really just depends on the person and how much density they will tolerate, but even at lower density if you have mixed use a place will be walkable. That sprawlburb in Hong Kong even though it was more dense than its us equivalent was still just as unwalkable.
We should make more places like Hong Kong
Way too many skyscrapers.
wrong we should make more places like Singapore.
GOD NO!!!
I feel like westerners like to glorify HK like it’s some urbanism utopia, but Hong Kong has the same issues that plaque many major cities in the world, like affordability, overcrowding, lack of support for the underprivileged.
Hong Kong is one of the most extreme examples of hyper capitalist dystopia.
(build central cylinders with all the plumbing and wiring - everyone gets a 360 apartment )
American suburbia is also not the height of perfection. They grow into unimaginable spaces. To get to a school, a pharmacy, a store, a hospital, a clinic, you need a car, because public transport in America is simply terrible. While the Hong Kong apartment buildings on the lower floors have everything you need, shops, pharmacies, etc. Transport in Hong Kong is quite developed. But I don't want to justify these houses shown in the video. Some of them are really terrible and look like an anthill. It is necessary to look for a middle ground, in the form of low-rise apartment buildings with a lot of green spaces
you're wrong,one other city does have excactly same low land high demand situation,mumbai india , please make a video on it
I would ask what the parking situation is like in Hongkong. I imagine each of those towers is both less expensive and adds less congestion to local roads by virtue of limited parking. Actually meeting our goals, affordable housing and reduced car orientation in development, is important in whether urbanists should support a high rise imo, particularly as this form of development seems to create the most friction with the car brained (who unfortunately are allowed to vote)
Parking situation in HK is awful, there is not enough space for even commerical vehicles (goods vehicles, heavy trucks etc.), some ended up just parked on the street at night illegally and they don't have a choice. Parking space is also awfully expensive, renting one can be more than US$300 equivalent a month, or you can try your luck to find public parking (free from 8pm-8am Mon-Fri, 10pm-10am Sat-Sun, but the amount is tiny and some may occupied by triads)
The parking situation is "don't". Many of those buildings have no parking at all because driving is simply a no-go. The public transit is some of the best in the world though, clean, comfortable, and fast. I find it much more enjoyable than taking a taxi.
@@planefan082 see that sounds perfect and exactly what I would want given such dense housing
Been living in HK for a decade and never for one second did I wish I had a car. Now, I’ve lived in the highly urban areas, like most do. If you’re in a village house you’d be more likely to want your personal mode of transport but even there it’s not essential
Well let's say there is a reason the tax on new car is 100%....
I think it's fair to say that Hong Kong has a unique reason why it's so dense. That also makes the metro of Hong Kong not comparable to other cities.
Yea, as long as your country isn’t saying that all global trade will now go through only your city then your city is probably safe from accidentally turning into Hong Kong.
The comparison to weight lifting and Arnold was bang on!
Have family in Seoul and a lot of those images could have been of Seoul and I wouldn't have noticed.
For the most part, I liked Seoul, so I'm not sure why these are a bad thing.
Apartments in Seoul look like palaces compared to the crap you get in HK.
Im a Hong Konger and i live in a townhouse. But i think living in a tall building has some advantages too. There are fewer mosquitos and the security is better. Hong Kong is too crowded and you can hardly find a table in a restaurant. Id personally prefer Bangkok. The condo living there is much more comfortable and you can always find a place to relax there. Its not like hong kong, where you can only see people after people and crowds after crowds.
I am wondering: someone in HK living on 55th flor wants buy a bottle of milk, how long would take to go to shop.......
The time it took them to ride an elevator, cuz the grocery store is at the ground-floor
A less lot time than it takes a suburbanite to drive across town to a generic big box supermarket.
ok, 2 things, first the end video is Montreal quai isn't it? I dunno if they renovated or what but look a lot nicer then what I remembered with Jaque cartirer bridge aon the background.
2nd is Mid rises are the worst excerpt in historical ways like Paris. They usually are the worst, I would prefer high floors of a high rise or a house/mansion/villa/castle on the ground nothing in the middle like a mid-rise, townhouses are bad too, and even worse are those 5-6 stories townhouses and lesser but still sucks apartments 4-5 floors apartment that flat and long or by length
Exactly, that's Quai de l'Horloge at the end
@@OhTheUrbanity It's coming back to me, they did some major renovation on the terminals. The quai tower itself not sure, semm like some renovations have been done. The field and trees look a lot nicer. Maybe just a repaint, the tower was greyer I remember, now much more clean and radiant looks from the ending
@@OhTheUrbanity Oh and also lots of typos from 3am in the morning typing in the dark, hopefully now is a better read
@@OhTheUrbanity Maybe everything just look better on video?
That NIMBY comment at the beginning is giving me some Yogi Berra "Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded" energy. I mean, nothing restaurants hate more than large crowds of people, amirite?
Thanks
Do people actually say that? That they're worried their city could become one of the top 5 cities in the world like Hong Kong?
Came back from Hong Kong a couple weeks ago!! One of the most interesting and beautiful places I have been to. The eurocentric perspectives of urbanism are very harmful
Oh no . I woke up to discover I'd turned into Arnold !
This channel doesn't talk about Chicago much.
We mainly talk about the cities we've lived in or visited (recently enough to have taken footage), unless we have enough interesting data to make a video (like density data here). We don't want to cover a place just for the sake of it, without having anything interesting to say or show.
@@OhTheUrbanity Fair enough. Visit Chicago. =)
As a hong konger, I think this measurement of density is really skewed for hk because it doesn't count the height
Me hearing someone saying that Singapore is a bad example of urbanism 👁️👄👁️
If you're interested in a "mid-rise city" that achieves greater density in its urban districts than HKG, but doesn't really achieve more livability (outside of certain rich districts), look at Ho Chi Minh City. Its particular history has eliminated a lot of its parklands and, although I love the vibrancy of the city, it doesn't have the amenities that a city like HKG does.
Hong Kong's density makes transit so easy to get around everywhere almost any time of the day. In addition, the vast amount of reserved greenspace all across the territory makes for very good quality of life too.
@@WillmobilePlus
Who can afford the high living costs unlike the ordinary people they advocate their ideal cities for.
San Mateo California deserves all the shade it gets. And then some
Needs less fast and furious and more shady and copious (amounts of water)
@@nolesy34 that'll happen when the next big earthquake brings down that crystal springs dam of theirs
@@esgee3829 ouch... yeah i was just hoping for rain
But ok if that floats your boat
@@nolesy34 i mean it's probably gonna sink boats but it may also erase all the angled street parking which kills cyclists in their downtown so that would be a win
It would be really interesting to see density rankings with apartment size accounted for
I wonder how Rio de Janeiro would be if density of house were higher. Maybe cheaper to live
Suburbanites scowl at the idea of living in a high density area while it takes them a 15minute drive to buy groceries. Meanwhile I reach my nearest supermarket within a 5minute walk or shop at a large shopping mall in a 10minute bus ride(5mins waiting + 5mins travel).
What people really miss out when thinking about high population densities is that amenites and services will tend to densify along side as well.
I live in the suburbs and this is not always the case. I live about a 15 minute walk from a train station that connects the town centres of every suburb in the area, and sits within a town centre with many amenities. You can also decide to live in an apartment in the suburb centre itself where you could get to the train station within minutes, while still having large single family homes for those who want to live in them. There are also random rows of shops or cafes mixed in the middle of houses so it's likely you live a short walk away from one in my area. The problem with new developments is that they just pack a bunch of same looking houses together without mixing anything else in, so the result is the house maze hellscape that you see most urban youtubers using as an example of suburbia. Other areas aren't always like that.
My boy Samuel
I like that you mentioned the importance of unit sizes. A tower of "family size" 3+ bedroom apartments has a very different density then the same tower filled with 15 m2 micro-studios
Seoul South Korea is the only example I can think of with a similar development plan (maybe wrong)
Most of Seoul is mid-rise. They do have some of the high rise residential towers in Hong Kong style, but they are not the predominant way of housing. The only city that is comparable to Hong Kong is Singapore, but again it is some rare constraints that have made it like that.
Very good and insightful video! Unrelated question, but are there examples of cities that densified mainly by developing their suburbs? You always present quality content and I’m all for it :))
I love your channel but sometimes you rely too much on pure statistic, which as we all know can be misleading and problematic when things are not exactly comparable.
I agree that Hong Kong is different from most cities and that they have a reason to prefer high rises for increased density and that when you take this into account you see that it is very dense and when something is atypical it's not possible to measure it with the same criteria as the rest. In addition, calculating density by average inhabitant per km2 is very basic and problematic, especially when the area measured is inconsistent but if you choose to use it you cannot a criteria which is inaccurate and based not only on assessments to other vague areas (like "metro area") that are a statistical area or another estimate when the criteria of choosing those specific areas is unclear and, definitely, not the same in all cities.
I've never seen the claim that Hong Kong is proof that high rises do not create density and It's clear that the urban areas of Hong Kong are dense, weather they are denser than Paris or New York or not and choosing specific problematic criteria showing it as denser is not necessary and might even strengthen precisely those who support this far-fetched claim.
BTW, comparing averages that are used for large quantities on very small ones is not recommended as the skew the results. Taking a measure of a a small area and calculating the density per km2 inflates results and makes it worthless, just like small Islands nations and micro countries are many times at the top of things like most deaths from something (even if it's one or two per year) or the highest GDP per capita.
regardless of all of this, the fact is that you can get high density without high rises in the majority of cities, just like they do in Paris, Barcelona (where I live), L'Hospitallet de Llobregat (the adjacent city to Barcelona with a density like Paris) or Bnei Brak in Israel (where I'm Originally from), a city in the center neat Tel Aviv of just 7 km2 with 218,346 inhabitants and a density of 29,707/km2 (the inhabitants are all super orthodox and very large families in small apartments).
I admit I'm not entirely sure what your criticism is. I think we did a pretty careful job of presenting density here, covering different statistics: Hong Kong as a territory (which is misleading), the developed parts of Hong Kong, the "core" of Hong Kong in Kowloon, and finally the density of different housing estates (which give a sense of how much density varies and what different densities look like). And we've talked in other videos about how mid-rise and even low-rise buildings can be surprisingly dense *if* they can cover a lot of land (although this doesn't make them as dense as high-rises).
You are a statistician, correct? I also like maths.
Too dense is a bad argument. At most its a preference. But then you can make the same preferential argument as wanting to live in a farm.
Hong Kong is a great city and been there many times and lived there for months at a time with family. It is not perfect but it beats a lot of mid rise cities I been to let alone suburban sprawl. I would take Hong Kong urbanization over suburban sprawl.
"preference" is the bullshit argument. The vast majority of people do not have the luxury of uprooting their lives and relocating to a level of density they prefer.
@@louiscypher4186 The median US household net worth is $121k. The majority of Americans can liquidate this wealth and uproot their lives and move if it is that important to them. Many people fled out of coastal states complaining about cost of living. In the end, the reason most people stay is because whatever their complaints of where they live, it is an acceptable compromise for the benefits.
@@yanDeriction That is a complete distortion and you know it.
Median household net-worth increases with age and includes assets that cannot be liquidated easily (like life insurance and retirement savings)
Even housing where most people have their wealth tied up cannot easily be liquidated you also have the factor in the ability for people relocating to find new jobs in a new location.
Claiming that the majority of people can move is delusional yuppie shit.
I really wonder where all these complainers about density expect people to go.
We aren't saying they have to go anywhere. We're saying don't go anywhere. Stay there where it's dense if you like it so much. Do not bring your density here where we want to be more spaced out.
7:15 why would we want to control for ðat? We just need to make sure we know how many people are in how much area. Ðat's it, end of story
HK, such a great city, especially its heyday in the gogo 80s. Although nothing to do with urbanism, it is no longer the unique forward looking place it once was
Hong Kong’s story is almost entirely based on factors beyond its own control. It was given a forward-looking role-a large, poor labour source and a shipping port. That labour source is no longer poor, nor does it need outside management or business talent, nor does it need Hong Kong’s seaport.
Kinda sad but also kinda on Hong Kong to figure out how to do its own thing and not be a burden.
I can think of 2 cities with similar circumstances: Singapore and (to a degree) Monaco. Both citystates with a very limited amount of land, popular because of their unique fiscal and/or policy advantages over neighboring countries.
Singapore is much less dense than HK; average apartment sizes are 2 to 3 times as large, buildings are farther apart and there are no cage homes. Though Singapore also has a unique housing system where 80% of its population live in some sort of public housing provided by the HDB. And unlike HK, SG's government doesn't rely on property related revenue so it has less incentive to inflate property prices.
Monaco is a giant tax haven for the uber rich so it's an altogether different situation again; very few people who are not very wealthy choose to live in Monaco. Overall, HK, SG and Monaco are all quire unique in terms of housing.
Singapore doesn't really have a lot of high rises and even when they do, they're shorter.
Who says Singapore is a failure????????
Some people really, really don't like tall buildings
@@OhTheUrbanity yeah... but like you said, some places have no other viable solution
The planned density at Sen̓áḵw and some of the TOD on the Yonge North extension is similar to Hong Kong housing estates.
Hong Kong is absolutely fascinating. How can a small mountainous city and harbor grow to be so phenomenally dense. I’d even say this city has the world’s best, most striking skyline.
And the fact that it’s not a massive slum like many cities in the world is impressive too. Violent crime in HK is not even comparable with some US cities.
In the immediate postwar years, especially with thousands fleeing to HK from 1949 onwards, it was. However the 1953 Shek Kip Mei fire helped reorient the housing market and pushed everyone to build up.
Well culture has something to do with this. East asian cities generally don’t get very high crime rates and are safe to walk alone at night. Mind you inequality in hong kong is crazier than many western cities so socioeconomic factor doesn’t seem to play the major role
@@ianhomerpura8937 I learned about crime in Hong Kong from Ip Man 3