CROSS-CONTOUR DEVELOPMENT OF HILLY SITES The needs of a housing programme
are four planning, sites, capital and labour. Of these four, Hong Kong in
"We have, therefore, a total area of 391 square miles (of which 62 square miles are immediately use- able) with a normal capacity of the ration of space doled out to each only one matter has no problem; there about 1,200,000 persons. This family seems pitifully meagre. In is plenty of labour. Of capital there area is now required to accom- Europe and America, for instance, is also plenty but it is not cheap capi- modate over 2,500,000 persons the worst slums of the past were at tal. Financial arguments are not the and to absorb a rate of natural densities of less than five hundred purpose of this article but it must be increase of 75,000 per annum.'' people to the acre, and rehousing is observed in passing that a far larger Hong Kong Annual Report, now seldom carried out at figures proportion of rent than might be
1956, Chapter 1.
exceeding two hundred to the acre. supposed goes to reward the specula- Architects in these places are as- tor for his enterprise or to meet in- tonished to learn that Hong Kong's terest on public loans. Cheaper money These words summed up the essen- slums have densities in excess of two could do as much to bring down rents tial fact of Hong Kong's Problem of thousand to the acre; so much so that as cheaper buildings. Planning, the People. Though the actual figures one is reluctant to court disbelief by third requirement, is a matter of pro- may have changed since they were asserting that the new developments fessional and administrative skills. written, the picture they give is still are no more spacious but in fact are Hong Kong has the men but they true to-day; the Problem itself has planned on the basis of the same are few. More could be done to not changed.
figure. There is, of course, no ab- follow the good example of the Reset-
*
*
The work of housing the flood of solute standard. What suits the West tlement Department who, by extreme newcomers and of rehousing the slum- may not suit Asia now; but the trend standardisation of plans and pro- dwellers is being tackled with devo- of change is already evident. The cedures, make their few pairs of tion and skill and much has been next generation in Hong Kong will hands perform marvels. There is now done of which the authors may well not thank its fathers for vast legacy to be more co-ordination than in the be proud. Government and the semi- of slums. Densities must be lowered; past in the field of public housing; public housing bodies have together but how? achieved remarkable results in their efforts to put roofs over the heads of needy people. Private enterprise has
pay.
fast as
new
Two Barriers
there, it seems, the lesson is learned. It only remains for private enterprise to embark upon more rational and large-scale planning, as the specula.
Fourth Need
com-
done wonders to house those who can Architects in Hong Kong do not tive builder and the insurance
Nevertheless, as
need sermons on the need for better pany executive in the West are now homes are built the number of people housing standards but as they design doing. The few men that there are needing them increases. At present the they are very conscious of being hard should not be allowed to waste their annual provision of housing exceeds up against two rigid barriers to im- time in duplicating each other's efforts by only a small amount the annual provement: lack of land and lack of and in piecemeal development. increase in population, so that the money. Sites are so scarce that they vast pool of squatters and slum-dwei- are forced to cram them. Prospective lers is scarcely diminishing. Unless tenants are so poor that even after more houses are built more quickly, every effort to economise and keep sites, seems to present at first glance The fourth requirement, that of or unless the pressure is dissipated of the rents down there are many who its own accord through emigration or cannot pay them.
the most intractable problem. The 62 Those awaiting some other external cause, the Problemi
square miles of land referred to in homes should have something the quotation at the head of this will still be with us in a decade from better than Shek Kip Mei, yet few article are used as fully as any part can afford Java Road. How can of the surface of the planet. Here and costs be brought down to meet their there pockets of undeveloped land ability to pay?
survive; there are reclamations, areas
LOW.
Space Ration
more
new
The need is not only for
It might seem that in face of the vacated by the military, areas chang- houses more quickly but for houses to enormous size of the problem com- ing their use or ripe for rebuilding. higher standards. The conditions in pared with local resources, the poverty Yet even were they all available for which people exist as they cling to of people themselves, the scarcity of housing and not for industry, open the hillsides and rooftops and huddle land for building and the prodigious space and other pressing needs, even in crammed tenements are so appall- efforts already being made to over- then they manifestly could not ac- ing that even the resettlement estates come these difficulties, that in face of commodate the hundreds of thousands seem in comparison spacious and the these things it is not the time to call still without a proper home. Housing Housing Authority and Society flats for an increased tempo of building, is forced to seek new sites elsewhere; like palaces. Judged by to-day's for reduced densities, for higher stan- and the only place for it to go is up standards in Hong Kong the tenant dards and for reduction of costs and the hillsides. of a new flat of any sort is indeed consequently of rents. Of course, all lucky. Judged, however, by the these things are
the these things are desirable; but are standards of modern cities elsewhere. they possible?
16
Until recently, only the more ex- pensive blocks of flats have been built on steep hillsides, housing more pro
THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER
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VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2