Hong Kong at Sunset – Simon Zhu (2018)

Hong Kong might be something you imagine New York to be or something like the picture above! A place to be in with new job opportunities and skyscrapers surpassing the sky. However, is this what Hong Kong is really like?

My uncle grew up on a farm somewhere in China originally speaking Cantonese. To pursue a different life, he moved to Hong Kong when he turned 18 (the year 2000), while the rest of his family moved to New York City. Rather than living on a boring farm, Hong Kong is a developing country with new technology and people speaking Cantonese just like him. Hong Kong would be a good choice, so he thought. As my uncle phrase Hong kong in a sentence, “It was like living in endless worries.”

Government housing – Independent (2018)

Arriving in Hong Kong, rent prices were too high. My uncle was forced to live on the street. Luckily he end up getting a place to live where he worked at. His boss, the owner of a restaurant, let him sleep in the back of the kitchen.

In 2000, the prices of Hong Kong’s apartments costed an estimated total of $5000 USD for living in 300 square feet. Housing prices were so horrendous that the living conditions consist of sub-divided apartments called “coffin homes.” People will get only a coffin size room that can only fit a mattress to live in and to put their belongings in such as the picture on the bottom left. To live in one of these costed around $200 USD alongside living with multiple people consisting of 6-7 or even up to 18 people in one apartment while sharing a bathroom and kitchen.

My uncle claims almost the same thing when he was looking for places to live in 2000-2001. All of the places were compacted with high costs more than he can even afford. Eventually, he found a place in an apartment for $300 a month on the 30th floor. His earnings were around $300-$350 range, which is just enough to afford a place to stay. It was a really small room such as the picture on the bottom right of Mr. Ng. Sharing with multiple people, he had no privacy in doing anything.

“coffin homes”   (Kin Cheung, 2022)                         Mr. Ng lives in a 60-feet-square (Kin Cheung, 2022) 

Due to low supply and high demand prices are high.  As a rapidly growing country, Hong Kong consists of 7,482 million people as of 2020. From Planning Department of Hong Kong, 75.6% of Hong Kong’s land is non built area and 24.3% of it is developed land. However, only 3.7% of the developed land is urban housing. Hong Kong has no issue with land supply itself, much more so about land usage.

Hong Kong’s Developed Land v.s Natural Land (Business Insider 2021)

But why is land not getting used?
The short and simple answer is the government controls all the land in Hong Kong.
Hong kong’s government leases out its land to developers for the highest bid. The reason why government leases out its land is because the majority of the government’s income comes from the leases. The thing is the developer who leases the land either doesn’t do anything with the land or builds their own establishment for their own reason. With more and more land getting leased there is less land for housing and providing more funded housing for people will lower the government’s income.

Who gets affected?
People who are most affected are every class, even the billionaires. The lower class are forced to either be homeless or live in the “coffin houses.” The middle class makes too much money for public housing and doesn’t have enough to buy making them self-independent to struggle. Billionaires play a monopoly with the land but with the scarcity of land, prices of land keep increasing every year.

One solution Hong Kong people hope to seek is for the government to provide more affordable homes. As of 2014, Hong kong plan to use Long Term Housing Strategy policy which will build 28,000 housing units each year for the next 10 years However, people cannot rely on the government because they do not know any news, date, or time when they will consider giving out the funded housing. To combat this situation, people are finding new ways to live.

Individuals came up with an inventive way to live for cheaper by making bunkers small and compact but yet it gives people enough privacy to live comfortably.  Instead of living in “coffin housing” this is an improvement called “capsule housing.” The rent for these capsules compares to one of the coffin ones or even less.

This is only a short-term solution to the long lasting problem of the housing crisis in Hong Kong.

capsule housing – Eric Wong (2012)

Hong Kong prices are even more dramastic than it was back in the 2000s. Due to inflation and covid prices have skyrocketed from . With Sale index from 2000 being 60 to being 190 in 2022. Prices have a 316% increase since 2000.

Until government finds a way to solve this problem, Hong Kong will have an endless cycle of housing crsis.

Luckily my uncle moved to New York in 2005 and reunite with the rest of his family. It was a good thing as prices are much higher than it was before.

• Inside Hong Kong’s cage homes posted by Vox Aug 15, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watchv=hLrFyjGZ9NU&ab_channel=Vox
• Article title: Hong Kong Housing
  URL: https://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hong-Kong-Housing/f4eedd2425e04065a18dbd2d4de07a46/35/0
  Website title: AP Images
  Date accessed: March 21, 2022
• Article title: Hong Kong Housing
  URL: https://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hong-Kong-Housing/96ceff5284664df8b745ac2fc733e5bc/37/0
  Website title: AP Images
  Date accessed: March 21, 2022
•  BETTINA WASSENER and GRACE TSOI. (October 17, 2013 Thursday). Hong Kong Rents Soar, Squeezing Out Small Shops. The New York Times Blogs (Sinosphere). https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:59KT-YX71-JBKK-54JJ-00000-00&context=1516831
• GENE LINN; Special to The Journal of Commerce. (). PROPERTY PRICES AND RENTS SKYROCKET IN HONG KONG INCREASES SPARK RELOCATION FEARS. Journal of Commerce. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3TD9-C1D0-009G-H24S-00000-00&context=1516831
  
• Joyce Ng and Rachel Yeo . (August 11, 2021 Wednesday). Hong Kong’s housing crisis: soaring prices put flats beyond reach, while queue to rent keeps growing longer. South China Morning Post.com. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:63BR-3861-DYRW-R2VV-00000-00&context=1516831
  
• https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-hong-kong-kowloon-walled-city-asia-britain-dense-population-overcrowded-human-rights-a8241941.html
  Inside Hong Kong’s lawless walled city – the most crowded place on Earth for 40 years
  Tuesday 06 March 2018 13:17
• Hong Kong’s poor live in homes smaller than prison cells – study
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/01/hong-kongs-poor-live-in-homes-smaller-than-prison-cells-study Wed 1 Nov 2017
• https://unsplash.com/s/photos/hong-kong
• https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QHKR628BIS