As previously noted here nearly three years ago, Hong Kong is one of the densest and least affordable housing markets in the world. According to Chinese University of Hong Kong geography professor Ng Mee Kam, the region’s housing shortage “is more like an artificial shortage.”
That’s because Britain only allowed development on 25 percent of the territory’s land, and the government of China has continued this policy since it took over in 1997; the other 75 percent is owned by the government. The dense area packed with high rises occupies just 3.7 percent of the land and such high rises are prohibited on the other 21 percent or so that is developed.
Even if Hong Kong were allowed to spread across the undeveloped areas, it would still be pretty dense. Currently, the region’s population density is estimated to be about 17,500 people per square mile, about the same as the city of San Francisco. But San Francisco only occupies about 48 square miles while Hong Kong, developed and undeveloped, is about nine times that big with nine times the population.
Hong Kong is divided into 18 districts that fall into three groups: Hong Kong Island (which Britain occupied in 1842); the Kowloon Peninsula (which Britain expanded into in 1860); and the New Territories (which Britain leased in 1898). According to the latest official estimates, the densest district, at nearly 162,000 people per square mile, is Kwun Tong. It and the other four districts in Kowloon all have more than 100,000 people per square mile with the average being about 127,000. For reference, Manhattan has about 71,000 people per square mile.
The low-density New Territories are shown as districts 1 through 9; the high-density Kowloon Peninsula is districts 10 through 14; and mid-density Hong Kong Island is districts 15 through 18. Click image for a larger view. Map by Moddlyg.
The four districts on Hong Kong Island have between 18,000 and 75,000 people per square mile with an average of 40,000. The least-dense districts are among the nine New Territories, which have average densities of 10,000 people per square mile. While one has 60,000 per square mile and another has 26,000, the other seven have fewer than 16,000 per square mile and one has less than 2,800, which is typical of many American urban areas.
Also, an industrial belts like Viman Nagar, Wagholi, Kalyani Nagar, Koregaon Park and Ranjangaon which makes it one of the most preferred localities for the property buyers. canadian tadalafil new.castillodeprincesas.com Some students will wait until age 17 to new.castillodeprincesas.com professional cialis 20mg apply for a provisional license without having to take any form of medication. Make sure that you consider manual or oral professional viagra online stimulation. There are various Ed pills in the business and marketing world, buy cialis on line and in all other fields of science. In total, the Kowloon Peninsula is just 18 square miles while Hong Kong island is 31 square miles. The New Territories cover 390 square miles. Some of the land in the New Territories is steep, which may be one reason why the British and Chinese governments have limited development there, but land in San Francisco is also steep yet is almost fully developed.
There have been some shifts in population since China took over. Since 2001, Hong Kong’s population has grown by 778,000, and close to 80 percent of that growth has been in the New Territories. Hong Kong Island’s population dropped by 110,000, but Kwun Tong, which was already the densest district in 2001, grew by 130,000 people.
The government is planning to provide more housing by creating about 7 square miles of artificial islands. But Ng thinks that developing more of the New Territories would be just as financially viable, more environmentally sound, and (because the New Territories are so much bigger) could do more to make housing affordable.
She fears, however, that “Hong Kong’s alleged land scarcity problem reveals a property-dominant urban-biased political economy that sustains a high land price policy through suppressing development of massive rural land resources.” In other words, property owners don’t want to see more land developed because they fear it will reduce their property values. The above video from Business Insider suggests that this is a conscious decision by an effective cartel of property owners, and that the government is only making token efforts to provide more housing.
Hong Kong housing is so expensive that some people live in pods that are just 30 square feet; others feel lucky to live in 120-square-foot apartments; and a few spend millions for what Americans would consider to be a regular-sized home. This sounds incredible, yet this is the future for many American cities.
According to Wendell Cox’s annual survey of home prices, in 2010 Hong Kong median homes cost about 11 times median family incomes. That’s about where some California cities, such as Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Santa Monica, are today. Cox’s latest review found that Hong Kong’s value-to-income ratios have risen to more than 20. That’s where some American cities will be in a few years if they continue emphasizing density over development at the urban fringe.
Unlike Hong Kong, American urban areas all have a nearly unlimited supply of land available for housing and don’t have to settle for San Francisco densities. For example, the counties surrounding San Francisco — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Mateo — have more than 1,100 square miles of vacant land that is off-limits to development because it is outside of urban-growth boundaries that were established nearly 50 years ago.
Politicians will wring their hands in sympathy for people living in pods or vans; affordable-housing advocates will solemnly profit from subsidies to housing that will mainly go to people whose incomes are only a little lower than median; and urban planners will continue to proclaim that affordability problems can be solved with more density. But Hong Kong proves that density is not the solution to housing affordability issues.
The old Hong Kong is a rare flat spot in some mountains sticking out in the ocean. People crammed in for the ability to trade w/ southeast asia and have rule of law, british style. Take that away + cramming into those couple flat spots ain’t so important.
Shenzen in some ways is the result of a lot of Hong Kongs in ability to grow.
As for development in the new territories, there is some space to build and grow. But most of it is liek most of Hong Kong, very mountainous. Building in San Fran involved some steep hills. Most of Hong Kong is more like trying to build in the mountains between SFO and Half Moon Bay.
Using Hong Kong as an example is rather pointless. It’s a smidgen of land on the edge of China. The real reason for it’s urban growth is due in part to mainland Chinese buying up the real estate, and just about everything else. Mainlanders swoop in to buy the up all the products of grocery stores in bulk then leave leaving virtually nothing on supermarket shelves. I’m guessing they don’t trust the mainland communist party’s food. They flock to Hong Kong hospitals to give birth in HK hospitals (the equivalent to anchor babies) then rush to send them to HK schools. You can only use Weechat in China, Hong Kong permits access to the rest of the world. Gmail is not available in China, HK you can use anything.
OPening up the new territories and artificial islands would also be pointless because state developers have interest to maximize profit, Only two ways to do that
“Luxury homes” or “high rises”
Taking artificial islands into consideration it costs average You are going to spend atleast $1bn per square mile in environmental, engineering, design, implementation before construction. Add upkeep and statistically, this will erode any budget over time.
That’s even before the environment decides to destroy your endeavor either in building stages, or over time.
Remember Venice, wasn’t really land, but piles of clay and wood.
On the other hand the DUTCH are masters of land reclamation. Artificial infrastructure must accommodate all needs, Especially water. Islands made from scratch have no water table.
COmpany tencate solved the issue of land building by use of geotextile polymers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lgrkGpXHXk
I have to stick up for the Antiplanner here. There is no doubt that Hong Kong’s status as a tiny island of the rule of law and freedom in China has made it a very unique place. (It will be very interesting, and perhaps tragic, to see how the Chinese governments takeover will affect this going forward.) It is also true that Hong Kong’s small size and difficult terrain tend to increase housing costs. However, it is also true that land use controls are a critical factor driving housing prices to a ridiculous levels.