Hong Kong's density policy towards public housing: a theoretical and empirical review

Abstract

To a visitor who comes to Hong Kong from the West, the most conspicuous feature of urban life in Hong Kong is congestion. In most working-class and most business districts, it is all-pervading, apparently limitless, and impenetrable. Western planning philosophy often stresses the ill-effects of high-density development on human behaviour. To some extent, this anti-high-density hypothesis has been adopted by some planners in the Asian Region, even in Hong Kong. In the 1974 Plan for Hong Kong, prepared by Abercrombie, the "New York solution' was categorically denounced. Hong Kong was preoccupied by this fear of high density up to the early 1960s. Much new development in the metropolitan area has been uncoordinated and shortages of land have produced excessively high densities with inadequate provisions of open space and other amenities. -from Author