The Incredible Density of Hong Kong
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- 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...
Estimate of Hong Kong density for developed area: www.fraserinst...
Home size by country: shrinkthatfoot...
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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 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. 👏👏👏
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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....
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
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
Finally..........there is a video mentioned MOUNTAINS in Hong Kong ....
cool mountains
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
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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
Give me high density, walkable vibrant neighbours over car dependent lifeless suburbia any day.
HK mountains and landscape is pretty awesome too!
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
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.
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.
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.
The arnold schwarzenegger comparison comment was genius. I’ll be using it in the future
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 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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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!
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.
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?"
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.
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
We should make more places like Hong Kong
Way too many skyscrapers.
wrong we should make more places like Singapore.
GOD NO!!!
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 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.
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.
Let me tell you the truth about Hong Kong. Although this video presented lots of data, it adopted a negative attitude without justifying it. I'm a Londoner who moved to HK with my Chinese HK-born wife in 1990, and raised two children here. We live on HK Island on the outskirts of the city. Therefore:
1. We can get to Central District in 20 minutes by the extremely reliable Mass Transit Railway, which has never gone on strike. This compares with about 45 minutes in London. Fares are much cheaper than London, and the government subsidizes travel for over-60s, so I can travel anywhere in HK, by train, bus, minibus, or ferry, for HK$2 = 20 UK pence. Going anywhere in HK is extremely easy, cheap, and fast compared to London. And most transport is air-conditioned.
2. I can run to a country park in 15 minutes, and enjoy wilderness conditions in the early morning. There are many country parks, with (I've been told) more barbecue sites per capital than Canada.
3. High density cities are much more efficient than suburbia. For example, In 5 minutes, I can walk to a shopping plaza with 20 restaurants, many shops, and an MTR station. Utilities are cheaper because the average distance to each flat is so low. The cost of heating or aircon are shared, because each flat conducts heat to the adjacent one, instead of wasting it through outside walls.
4. At least on HK Island itself, crime seems rare, and I don't recall anyone telling me that they have been burgled or mugged - in western cities such as London, crime always seems a threat. Quite young children seem to walk around in HK, or travel on the MTR, in safety.
5. Overall, I feel much less pressurized by crowds in Hong Kong than I did as a young man in London. I recall the terrible traffic jams on London roads, the long, sweaty, journeys to work on the Tube, the sheer distances to visit people, and the scarcity of country parks compared to Hong Kong!
Our thumbnail calls Hong Kong "extremely misunderstood" and the video goes on to explain the reasons for Hong Kong's unique density. I don't know what "negative attitude" you're imagining.
Yep. As a HKSAR citizen, this is a great portrayal of how it works here. Housing is expensive and the density is high - however if you live in the urban areas (especially some of the housing complexes showed in the video built in the past 30 years, vertical stacking is actually not noticeable as you don’t see people above or below you when inside a flat and it honestly doesn’t matter. What matters and people do pay a fortune for is actually what’s next to your complex (as that is what you see out of the window), and can often be a premium (the 700,000pop/km^2 example might not actually be bad as many of the flats will have an unobstructed view to the sea). This also allows public transit essentially cover most corners of the city well, with the MTR reaching most of the cities population (again, people pay a premium to live on top of train stations). Obviously a long way to go for equality and living standards for the poor/less well off but overall I take the conveniences here for granted and love the city a lot.
Me hearing someone saying that Singapore is a bad example of urbanism 👁️👄👁️
Fun fact: there's a place in Hong Kong called Mong Kok (旺角), which literally translates to crowded place
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Absolute banger video!
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
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.
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?
*oMg yOu WaNt oUr nEiGhBoRhOoDs tO bEcOmE MMmAnHaTtAnNn??!!! *
Ah, Manhattanization, and Density! The NIMBYs' favorite scare words and strawman arguments.
And when they say this they exclusively show video of Times Square!
They also love to complain about how crowded trains get while exclusively showing footage of downtown Tokyo trains during rush hour…
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet Tell me about it. I also find it ironic and infuriating that the same people who whine about traffic the loudest are also the same people who fight tooth and nail the most aggressively against any kind of mass transit expansion, good urbanism, bike lanes, etc. Things that have been proven time and time again to reduce VMT.
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
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. =)
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?
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.
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 the density of Hong Kong is actually pretty cool. Especially if they can keep up in terms of public transportation
As a hong konger, I think this measurement of density is really skewed for hk because it doesn't count the height
Macao is even denser than Hong Kong. It's the densest place in the world.
💀it is not. hk is 68.4k per square mile, but Macau is 65.4k per square mile
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.
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 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!
Oh no . I woke up to discover I'd turned into Arnold !
I live in Hong Kong, and have the rare privilege of living in a 3-story village house, and it amazes me when I go out onto my balcony and see enormous high rises completely surrounding the village, all of them much bigger than any building in the CBD of my hometown. Truly a unique place.
I've never been to hong kong, but I visited Manhattan once, and walking around so many skyscrapers had some sort of magical feeling. I can imagine walking around Hong Kong feels similar
how much do you make a year? 2 million USD?
@@nihilisticprophet6985 Lol, I rent, and actually by HK standards it's not bad, 9000HKD per month, which will get you a tiny studio in the city.
@@WeiShiQiang you were making 9000 HKD a month and you lived in a villa? That was McDonald’s salary from like 15 years ago
@@nihilisticprophet6985 No, I'm paying 9000 a month rent, and I wouldn't call it a villa, it's just a nice village house. I don't want to share my salary online though.
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
The story of the walled city is insane, and how it went on to inspire things like blade runner
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.
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 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
Are u going to do more Asian cities in the future? 😁
While I understand the geographic restrictions force Hong Kong to develop like this, I don't know that we can say "therefore, places without geographic restrictions won't". Take Vancouver, the downtown is highrises, and surrounded by SFH not because of physical restrictions but zoning. The Senakw development (on unzoned, squamish land), is literally targetting Hongkong like densities.
While I agree highrises shouldn't be a punching bag for urbanism, I think advocating for rather specific urban froms, those that are inviting to users, is important in getting broader support for redeveloping our sprawled communities.
Downtown, Yaletown, and the West End have a lot of high-rises but they're generally quite a bit shorter and not as close together as what you find in Hong Kong. (Sure, Senakw might end up as one exception to this.) There's also an enormous difference in that this is a small section of the city (especially Metro Vancouver but even if we're talking about the City of Vancouver), while Hong Kong's high-rises cover much of the developed area.
@@OhTheUrbanity I think "the developed area" is important word choice. Isn't something like under 10% of Hongkongs area developmed for residential. I think we can look at American "cities" is a similar light. The CBC is dense and the surrounding is SFH. I think Urbanists should have an opinion on whether the solution is continued density with higher rises in the center, or outward mid density growth. I think there is a significant difference in the kind of walkability these choices allow.
That's said, Hongkong is sure an exceptional city and I would never argue other cities are like it. I'm only suggesting bad regulatory policies can put us on this path just as geography can. Really, Hongkong should be an argument against NIMBYs..
@@neolithictransitrevolution427 My perspective is that (1) the quantity and height of high-rises in Toronto and Vancouver is to some extent artificial, driven by insane zoning restrictions in most of the city, but that (2) the solution to this isn't to try to clamp down on heights with more limits but to offer more outlets for densification. I think we should move towards a model where we allow more density everywhere by default and allow people to live where they want instead of planning where they should live. While low/mid-rise development is our personal preference, housing is about costs and trade-offs and I think it's a big mistake that so many urbanists treat high-rises as bad or a nuisance.
@@OhTheUrbanity I agree with all your points, except that high rises need to be weighed based on location. Near transit and commercial/employment, great. But when the primary mode of transportation is car, and when parking is required for those cars, I think we should re-evaluate our support. Car dependent design means we add traffic, we don't incentivize walking, and we add huge costs to the units, all while creating a hatred of density.
@@neolithictransitrevolution427 When you have that kind of density, I think that should sufficient to support public transportation?
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.
One simple explanation I think is that what American urbanism is trying to do, is to build walkable, livable dense city to attract residence and induce population rise. Hong Kong is the other way around. Hong Kong's population density drives the need to build neighborhoods like this. The urbanism of HK is the inevitable solution of having to accommodate such a population.
The anti-China sentiment shows a lack of education on your part. "Authoritarian" was used as an adjective for the earlier stages of the PRC, yet all land was distributed at the village-level; villages owned the land and made democractic decisions. Hardly authoritarian. Similar principles apply to today.
It's best to identify when you're being fed anti-China sentiment during this new Cold War era so that you don't need to regurgitate it. Or better yet--don't include any political commentary in your videos. Your urban commentary is excellent, and is what people are here for.
You can't fight density. You can only choose to provide sufficient infrastructure or not. If a city is popular or has jobs then people will move there. If you don't allow sufficient housing to be built people will still move into "your" neighbourhood. They will just live with more roommates or in illegal suites. All over the city people are renting out basements and bedrooms. Just stopping from building affordable apartments doesn't stop people from existing. It just provides a desperate class of people who can't find a safe place to live for the scum of the earth to prey upon.
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.
(build central cylinders with all the plumbing and wiring - everyone gets a 360 apartment )
Never been to HK, but noticed that Asian cities (the few I’ve seen) are just so dense in general. Just came back from Manila and Tokyo and was surprised at how much they pack into their cities.
I wonder how Rio de Janeiro would be if density of house were higher. Maybe cheaper to live
Thanks for your share
Who the hell said hong kong and manhattan are failures?
For incoprating open space yes.. it's failure
HK is a nightmare for its inhabitants. In HK the quality of housing is so bad that I dont even feel I live in a rich developed region.
Its not ("a rich developed region") !
Greatly thought video
One hard fact, before 1997, the British Government passed a law, mandated 90%of free lands as country park, all existing parks, low rise lands, suburban areas are forbidding to build housing!
Go to Google map to look at satellite view of HK, there are a lot of free lands, but not able to develop!
Environment protection is good, but not that extreme! One Chief Executive of Hong Kong after 1997 suggested to put some of the low value parks to build public housing, he was being kick out of ruling by media and real estates Consotium! He cannot have his second term!
Now, the Government wanted to reclaim land from the sea, which is outside of the Lantou Island, the same island of the International Airport, which is also reclaimed from sea.
But the media brain washing the public, said that the cost of reclamation will dry up HK's financial reserve, will made HK bankrupt. But, the area is smaller than the airport, why the reclamation of Airport had not lead to HK bankruptcy?
however, there are a lot of people reject this proposal, advertisements and brain washing really works!