IN-PERSON Barcelona Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

High density has historically been seen as an urban blight, an undesirable consequence of industrial and economic necessity. The long-standing instinct has been to go for the middle way, best captured by Howard’s Garden City and its contemporary reiterations. Against this background, Hong Kong has stubbornly pursued a very different route. Since the 1950s, in an ever-evolving cooperation between the government, its planning frameworks and policies, public transport corporations, private developers, and the Housing Authority, Hong Kong has embraced high density living first as a necessity but more recently as a choice. In this paper, I argue through two case studies—Chai Wan on Hong Kong Island, and Lohas Park in the New Territories—that Hong Kong’s high density urban areas are beginning to offer real advantages in urban living: from convenience to amenities, schools, parks, leisure facilities, cultural institutions, and hospitals, to significantly reducing the ecological footprints of residents through sharing spaces and walkability. They offer a multitude of intersecting spaces for chance encounters between people from different social sectors from domestic helpers to young urban professionals and provide a sense of security through a three-dimensional “eyes on the street”. They begin to suggest a sustainable model of a “high-density urban culture” that is far more radically developed in Hong Kong than anywhere else in the world.