Squatters' shacks in Hong Kong. The problem remains despite the Colony's massive resettlement programme
put into space-exploration be direct- ed to more immediate needs? The answer normally given is that research must always precede development. But so far there has been little feed- back into developments for every-day needs.
Take for instance, the simple pro- blems of insulation in housing con- struction, how much has this been advanced by the knowledge gained in solving this major problem for man- red capsules leaving and entering the earth's atmosphere. Is it that those concerned are more interested in ap- plying this knowledge to military pro-
blems? What a comment on our so- called civilization?
The more one looks at the pro- blems of the underprivileged, of which housing is only one aspect, the more desperate and gloomy one feels. Great Britain, which has one of the best housing records in the World since the war, is falling behind the needs of its people for housing.
Hong Kong, with an incomparable record in its own league, has more squatters now than when it started its resettlement programme, despite hav- ing housed getting on for a million of them (a quarter of its population).
From the Eskimos to the Pata- to reveal first, the vast numbers of the housing problem. What amounts to desperate measures are having to be adopted in some countries mak- ing one hundred year old houses last another hundred years and so on.
If this is the measure of our civili- zation, gloomy thoughts are justified, but fortunately those concerned with housing do not give way to them, and it takes a conference such
as the World Congress of the International Federation of Housing and Planning to reveal first, the vast numbers of people now involved in the work throughout the world and secondly. the immense amount of thinking be- ing done and action being taken.
But, and there always is a but in such a statement, the fundamental de- fect in all this, is that each country thinks too much of its own problems. There is something incongruous, in one country considering how it can provide three-bedroom houses "with all modern conveniences" to all its people when others are thinking how they can possibly provide communal water points and latrines for a small proportion of its people.
Perhaps all men were never meant to be equal, but surely there can be no foundation for the disparity that exists or is being contemplated in housing between peoples. Perhaps, despite all that has just been said. somewhere about here lies the answer.
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Far East Architect & Builder July, 1966
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