
Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods - SparksZilla
http://www.wired.com/design/2013/08/unbelievable-photographs-of-hong-kongs-crazy-high-rises/
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jmduke
I used to -- and still do, to some effect -- fetishize living in a highrise. I
was a suburban kid who grew up in a boring (and, in retrospect, wonderful)
house surrounded by other boring houses -- I watched Seinfeld and Frasier, and
loved the idea of living in an apartment complex, where prospective friends
and plotlines were only yards and floors away.

Looking at Michael's pictures, I'm struck with a particular sense of envy -- I
realize, knowing what I know about median Hong Kong quality of living, that
its likely unpleasant to live in these conditions. And yet, the sheer
mathematics of it -- twenty thousand tenants divided by sixty floors is around
three hundred per floor -- makes me smile at so many imaginary hallway
interactions.

~~~
briandon
Spacehunt and gotrecruit are on the money.

Even if you spend 3-4x more than the average household's entire monthly income
so that you live in a flat that's almost got half as much usable space as a
typical suburban home in, for example, the US, you've got your neighbors to
contend with.

The exorbitant rent or mortgage that you're paying only buys you a bit of
extra elbow room (likely translated into more bedrooms and a coffin-like
chamber into which your domestic helper, i.e. maid, is supposed to be banished
at the end of their workday) and a better address. That money doesn't
translate into a higher quality of construction. Everything is built as
cheaply as possible and buildings begin to degrade pretty much as soon as
they're put up for sale. There's no insulation and floors/ceilings are very
thin.

Upstairs neighbor's child practicing piano at midnight ahead of a piano exam
that they have to pass so that they can cram another cert for another activity
into their portfolio for school applications? Their dog(s), which they keep in
a cage or exile to the balcony at night, barking or whining? Deal with it.
Down-the-hall neighbor having an epic, all-night mahjong tournament and the
neverending _ka-lakka-lakka-lak-lak_ sound of the tiles driving you bonkers?
Watching a football/soccer match on their TV and bellowing every time that
"their" team scores a goal? Deal with it. Condensation from someone's air
conditioner dripping from a great height and impacting one of your air
conditioners (or a nearby neighbor's) with a loud _twang!_ every few seconds?
Deal with it.

Then, there are the sidewalks. Thirty-floor (and taller) highrises are the
norm, but the sidewalks tend to be the same size as the ones in a low-density
suburb ... or smaller. At peak periods, trying to navigate the sidewalks
without getting elbowed or shoved into a railing or wall or (worst case) off
the curb and into traffic, is an adventure. At off-peak periods, you'll play
air conditioner drip Frogger and try to get to your destination without being
slimed with a melange of condensation, pigeon poop, and algae/mold/bacteria by
inferring a safe path from the locations of puddles on the sidewalk. Aiyah!
Look out! Here comes a guy pushing a metal cart laden with 3-liter cans of
corn oil barreling towards you down the sidewalk!

~~~
kamaal
My dad always tells me any apartments look glossy only in their first year of
construction. After that, things start to degrade pretty quickly. Start with
paint, then window glasses and then leaks and then what not. All the best
trying to get every one to pay up to fix the issues related to the general
apartment building. It never happens.

Unless you are living in a super luxury apartment, I see high rise residential
buildings as nothing more than modern day slums and ghettos.

The biggest annoyances you come across are the ones related to privacy and
hygiene.

~~~
contingencies
_I see high rise residential buildings as nothing more than modern day slums
and ghettos._

Some people prefer to live in cities, for example people who are driven to
earn lots of money, people seeking higher education or cultural experience,
people looking for partners, etc. For those people, depending upon the density
of the urban environment and their will to dedicate significant portions of
their waking hours to a soulless commute, sometimes that means there's no
other option but these buildings.

That said, I basically share your perspective. After living in apartments
throughout Asia and London for a decade, I really enjoyed being in a house
again in Los Angeles and am currently considering building one somewhere in
remote New Zealand. My thinking is that high density cities are lovely to
visit, but quality of life for the nine-to-five cityslicker typically sux. The
'burbs aint that much better, given commute overheads, an often broadly
similar lack of nature and, per capita, not entirely dissimilar rents (despite
the extra space afforded).

One point nobody seems to have made is that capital for buying houses is
virtually free in Hong Kong .. something like 1-3% interest IIRC.

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doctorstupid
There is a fortunate side effect to living in such tiny spaces. Having spent a
couple of years living in what could be considered submariner sized dwellings,
I found that the only thing I used the spaces for was sleeping. When one lives
in a tiny, depressing hole, one tends to maximise the time spent out in the
world doing things and socializing. With all of that activity I lost weight
too.

There is a tendency to beautify and manicure our dwellings as if they were
tombs in which to be eternally housed, sometimes with the result us of not
wanting to leave them.

~~~
briandon
When you were living in a cozy apartment, did it happen to be in a city where
free, public conveniences (like greenery, shaded benches, water fountains,
etc.) were rare to nonexistent, situated in a region where the climate was
extremely hot and humid year-round?

I ask because I live in such a city and socializing seems to take the form
(for the affluent) of, for example, sweaty people buying overpriced iced
coffees so that they have an excuse to sit in an air conditioned cafe and (for
the less well-off) of people, especially the elderly, sitting on ledges,
steps, the rare bench or two, etc. in air conditioned shopping malls,
libraries, and government buildings all day.

~~~
doctorstupid
No, it wasn't in such cities. They were, however, equipped with excellent
public transportation, which certainly lowers the barriers to going out.

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deerpig
Having lived in several buildings identical to the ones in a couple of the
photos for nearly a decade I can assure you there is nothing very nice about
living in them. The lifts and the hallways have no air conditioning. The flats
themselves are really really really small, you can fit a queen size bed into
the larger bedroom, but you're left with enough room to ease into the room
sideways. The worst is during Jan to early March when you get 6-8 weeks of
cold weather. It's only down around 10C but the buildings aren't insulated and
everything is made of tile, so the wind slices through the walls and the tiles
suck the heat out of your body. A lot of these housing blocks are built on top
of enormous shopping malls, or train stations or both. And getting to and from
work every day means pushing your way through what my Chinese wife used to
call "a sea of people" which people in the West would only see if you went
into a city for fourth of july, or new years eve fireworks.... And the pace of
life there makes NYC feel like a backwater village. There truly is no place
like Hong Kong on the planet.

That said, my time in Hong Kong was perhaps the happiest of my entire life.
And you get used to living on top of everyone else. I'm headed there next
month, which is only a 1.5 hour flight from Phnom Penh. I can't wait. There is
a little noodle shop in Dai Wai that I've been dreaming about for two months
now....

~~~
dualogy
I'm headed back to Phnom Penh after 3 months of Euro summer. Haven't bumped
into many coding types back when I was there (Jan-May) but then I've been
staring too much into my own codez all the while.. wanna hang for hacker
coffee after 4th September, then just get in touch!

------
hoi
One of the reasons for such high housing costs is the influx of investment
money. For example, this
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beverly_Hills](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beverly_Hills)
apartment complex is mostly empty. Most of the houses bought up by rich
mainlanders looking to park their money somewhere that would still grow their
investment.

Secondly, there are cheaper alternatives. Living in teh New Territories can be
tremendously more cash efficient. I live in the hills in a house, 2 floors, 3
bedroom, with a garden, and pay less than $2500 USD per month.

~~~
ddeck
Correct.

What few realize though is that the archaic pegged exchange rate is the key
contributor to this. In a typical exchange regime, such an influx of capital
would push the exchange rate higher and provide a balancing effect. Instead,
you get asset price inflation while wages in local currency remain flat. This
makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. [1]

Compounding the effect is the inability to have any kind of independent
monetary policy since the rate is pegged and there are no currency controls.
Consider an economy with strong growth, 6% inflation, and interest rates on
home mortgages of .....~1%? Welcome to HK.

[1] [http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-18/hong-kong-s-
weal...](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-18/hong-kong-s-wealth-gap-
widens-amid-aging-population-inflation)

------
jacquesm
"In Hong Kong, Rich Live In Mountain Mansions And Poor Live In Cages"

[http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-rich-live-in-
mansio...](http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-rich-live-in-mansions-and-
poor-live-in-cages-2013-2)

I think it wouldn't be too far out to guess that the eventual end of planet
earth is to be covered with structures like in the article posted and people
living in it along the lines of the one linked here.

How many people could you cram in like that?

Hope you like to eat fish.

~~~
frozenport
First, Don't take such a dim view! There is no reason why the buildings can't
be twice as high and twice as roomy.

Secondly, We be living off soylent

~~~
briandon
Are (many of) the apartments privately owned in this scenario?

If so, then everyone who has already bought an apartment and everyone who
stands to inherit such an apartment will "lose" money or the opportunity to
convert their real estate into money in the future if newer apartments are
more spacious or nicer in any obvious way.

Real estate developers will have less difficulty selling the units that they
build right now if buyers are confident that future apartments will not be
nicer (and hence more desirable to future buyers) than the apartments that
you're trying to fob off on them today.

It's a feedback mechanism that, unchecked, leads to what you find in HK:
progressively slightly smaller, more unpleasant apartments being built with
every passing year.

------
smartwater
Up to 60 floors / 20,000 people in an apartment building? I didn't realize
that existed. I don't think you'd find an apartment building in the US that
has even a fraction of that. The largest hotel in New York is the Marriott
Marquis in Times Square. It has 49 floors / 1,949 rooms, which I don't think
comes close to 20,000 people; I couldn't find the exact occupancy.

~~~
nostromo
I found a mention online that the average household size in Hong Kong is 3
people (in 2006).

So that's 20,000 people over 60 floors, 3 per apartment. That's 100 apartments
on a floor! They must be incredibly compact if those numbers are correct.

~~~
ddeck
The 20k figure would be referring to the development, which would be several
"blocks" (i.e. independent buildings crammed next to each other).

The average household size is still 3 (bit lower in public housing) with
average living space per person of ~140 square feet. Keep in mind that those
140 square feet are measured based on the outside of the building!

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3rd3
(Google Street View)
[https://maps.google.de/maps?ll=22.335737,114.14855&spn=0.002...](https://maps.google.de/maps?ll=22.335737,114.14855&spn=0.002858,0.008444&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=22.335773,114.148685&panoid=odCVp6Lk8NXqDop5iFDjFw&cbp=12,174.11,,0,-48.77)

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lisper
> After years of living in a small house in Hong Kong’s countryside...

Hong Kong has countryside?!?

~~~
jsankey
The Hong Kong we tend to think of is the very densely populated Hong Kong
Island and Kowloon area across the bay. Actually there is a huge area beyond
Kowloon to the north known as the New Territories which is much less
developed:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Territories](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Territories)

~~~
eru
Hiking is fun there.

------
jamesaguilar
Also, let's face it. It's very difficult to reason about the interior of a
building from pictures of its exterior. Who knows how nice these apartments
are? I grant that many of them are not probably up to the standards Americans
are used to, but the mildew from the tropical climate and various other
factors conspire to make things look worse than they are, I bet.

~~~
spacehunt
And most of them have a choice of multiple ISPs offering 1Gbps FTTH for about
US$20-40 a month...

~~~
cmsmith
Of course they do. The cost to run fiber to a building is largely independent
of the number of units in the building. So it makes perfect sense that higher
housing density leads to lower costs and higher speeds.

~~~
EliRivers
Based on my experience living in a small town in England five minutes walk
away from rolling, open fields, I suggest that what leads to lower costs and
higher speeds is actual competition between broadband suppliers, rather than
regulatory capture and cartels. I understand that it's common in the US for
high-density housing areas to have very little choice, poor service, and to
pay a fortune for their internet.

~~~
cmsmith
OK. As long as we're giving anecdotes, I live in high-density housing in the
US, and pay $50 for 200 Mbps symmetric service. Service which is only
available in buildings above a certain size.

------
paxswill
I watched Dredd on Netflix a few days ago, and I'm struck by how similar these
apartments and the blocks in the movie look.

~~~
noir_lord
The set design and sense of claustrophobia induced by Dredd was brilliant.

They even had accurate looking graffiti.

It was an exceptionally well designed set.

------
ksec
Price for Flat and Rental by income average are highest of anywhere on earth.
And NO, New Territories aren't cheap either. Heck even flat in Out Skirt
Island are expensive.

Business Monopoly by a few companies. Not necessarily a bad thing since South
Korea are the same too. Except Samsung manage to feed to poor and give back to
the country. Even with so much evil going on with them they still have some
decency to their own country. And yet these companies in Hong Kong are much
more about extracting all they can from Hong Kongers while not making
contribution.

Government has zero direction on where to go, no leadership what so ever. No
idea where the problems are. And unwilling to solve it.

------
marincounty
birth control.com

~~~
EliRivers
[http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hong+kong+birth+rate](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hong+kong+birth+rate)

~~~
trendoid
thanks for this, made me lookup this :
[http://lmgtfy.com/?q=afghanistan+birth+rate](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=afghanistan+birth+rate)

