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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
as Chairman of the Housing Authority. The sample survey of the population was undertaken at the Government's re- quest by the Department of Economics and Political Science of the University of Hong Kong. The field-work for this survey was carried out by graduates and undergraduates of the University during the summer vacation, and at the end of the year the report on its results was nearing completion.
RESETTLEMENT
The squatter problem in Hong Kong first became serious in 1947 as a result of the continuing-stream of immigrants from China, most of whom could not find normal accom- modation and therefore built squatter shacks on the hillsides. This stream of immigrants increased to a flood in 1949 as the Chinese Civil War spread southwards, and resulted in the formation of large squatter areas, some of which had populations of over 50,000 persons. By 1951 the need to clear these squatter areas had become urgent for several main reasons: the public health risk, the frequency of large squat- ter fires, and the fact that the squatters were occupying almost all the sites urgently needed for the Colony's rapidly expanding needs, in particular for more houses, more schools and more factories. It was therefore decided to establish re- settlement areas in which sites for one-storey cottages or huts could be offered to squatters cleared from sites required for permanent development or who, being victims of natural disasters such as fires or typhoons, could not be allowed to return to the site of their previous home. The living con- ditions in the cottage resettlement areas were a great im- provement on those in the squatter areas, but progress in their development was slow partly because most squatters could not afford to build cottages on the sites offered, and partly because the only sites available for such development were steep, relatively remote, and on heavily-eroded hillsides.
By December 1953 a total of about 37,000 persons had been resettled in the cottage areas when the disastrous Shek