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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF THE YEAR
INTRODUCTION
PERHAPS the best way of appreciating the task of the Resettlement Department is to fly over Hong Kong in a helicopter. The urban masses of the Island and Kowloon are fringed by hills, many of whose slopes are covered by a rash of small huts and shacks. There live the squatters, who have spread in their hundreds of thousands over the hills, over many rooftops and into any interstices they could find among the built-up areas. Looking down again on the scene, it will be noticed that extending in a wide arc to the north of Kowloon, from Lei Cheng Uk in the west to Yau Tong in the east, is a series of large estates, some still partly under construction, each made up of variously shaped blocks of flats, gaily colour-washed. The same type of estate will be seen at Chai Wan and Aberdeen on the Island, and in Tsuen Wan and Yuen Long in the New Territories. All these are the resettlement estates in which squatters have been rehoused. Next in our panorama, groups of small cottages may be picked out here and there: these are the cottage resettlement areas where former squatters live under the supervision of the Resettlement Depart- ment. Finally, the observer will notice what appear to be some squatter areas that are neater than others, with the huts in straight rows and with adequate fire lanes at regular intervals. These are temporary licensed resite areas where in certain circumstances people are permitted to build their own huts and where basic facilities are provided for them. This flight has already suggested in outline the Resettlement Department's main functions: negatively, to prevent further squatter encroachments; positively, to clear squatters from land needed for development into resettlement estates; to move their businesses into estate shops and their small-scale industries into workshops or separate factory estates; to administer and maintain these estates and cottage areas; and to provide and supervise the temporary licensed areas and allocate building space in them.
2. At the end of March 1968 there were, in round figures, 1,040,000 people living in the resettlement estates and cottage areas, that is about
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