our new towns the intimacy and responsible self-reliance
which were such familiar features of the village streets
from which so many of the inhabitants have come. Even
the design of housing estates has been changed to assist
this process.
19.
As I say, what we have been trying to do is to
build a community - and now, within it, a series of
communities through the new emphasis on District Administration
and to do so at a pace which is consistent
and participation
with our economic growth and capacity.
20
We had three serious setbacks:-
Thus the general
The oil price recession, the over-heating of 1979, and
the massive immigration of 1978/80.
objectives which we had hoped to reach in the first half of
this decade will only be reached in the second. As you said,
Sir, it is now just a question of time. But in retrospect
-
I am impressed by the supreme importance of maintaining smooth
progress in our public works and housing programmes. However
necessary and prudent our rephasing of these works may have
seemed in the apparent crises of the times and I accept full
responsibility their cumulative repercussions were not so
fully appreciated. They have been particularly painful in
the field of transport. The fact is that in a place developing
as rapidly as Hong Kong the construction of land and
communications, housing and all that is necessary to attract
people to live in the houses and work near them - which of
course includes transport these things are the infrastructure
of our economic progress. In this respect you will have noted
the Financial Secretary's wise innovation of a Capital Works
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