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Hong Kong is brimming with neon-lit shopping strips that sell luxury brands, jewels, and technology to eager consumers; the skyscraper-filled skyline contains businesses that make the city one of the world’s major financial hubs. Yet behind the glamorous facade, approximately 200,000 people, including 40,000 children, live in spaces ranging in size from around 15 – 100 square feet.
With a population of nearly 7.5 million and almost no developable land remaining, Hong Kong’s housing market has risen to the most expensive in the world. Pushed out by soaring rents, tens of thousands of people have no other option than to inhabit squatter huts, sub-divided units where the kitchen and toilet merge, coffin cubicles, and cage homes, which are rooms measuring as small as 6’ x 2.5’ traditionally made of wire mesh. “From cooking to sleeping, all activities take place in these tiny spaces,” says Lam. To create the coffin cubicles a 400 square flat will be illegally divided by its owner to accommodate 20 double-decker beds, each costing about HK$2000 (over $250 USD) per month in rent. The space is too small to stand up in.
Better than being homeless, but only just.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 29 2017, @09:42PM (2 children)
Come on, San Francisco, you can beat them and be #1! You wouldn't believe what those sanctuary illegal Guatemalans and El Salvadorians can tolerate!
Sanctuary cities! Low-skilled workers paid decent minimum wages for liberalism! 15 bucks an hour! With tips!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @11:25PM (1 child)
This just in: Stupid person says something stupid. Again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:01AM
Self-referencing comments are self-referencing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @09:49PM (28 children)
You might just be better off hanging a hammock in an alleyway at that point in time. At least then you will have enough space to stretch your legs. Maybe it wouldn't matter as much if people there were hovering around 5' or less, but with even asians averaging in the mid to upper 5' range, with a few unlucky individuals reaching 6' and above, it is ludicrious to try and live in space less than your height cubed. The SOLE exception is literally if the only thing you do there is sleep, at which point it still needs to be at least your height long with some store under, over, or to the side of you. Anything less is a fire, safety, and health hazard.
I would feel sorry for these people, except that they have chosen it rather than either staying/returning to the mainland, or emigrating somewhere with sufficient space to live. Hopefully some/most of them are making enough money with the rent they save that they can use it to get out to somewhere else in the future, but I doubt that is any more true in Hong Kong than for the lower class in the US.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:06PM (24 children)
Yeah, that's something I genuinely fail to understand. Why would anyone want to live in a city when they don't have to? Drop your standard of living for half a year enough to afford to move, find another job or a place within commuting distance, and GTFO. I mean, shit, leave the city and your standard of living instantly and significantly increases without getting a dime worth of extra income. Plus you're a lot less likely to get murdered to death.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:39PM (3 children)
Is there another outcome for murder in rural areas?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:42PM (1 child)
Nah, it's just a fun phrase.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:58PM
You better watch what you say, or you'll wake up dead someday!
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Monday July 31 2017, @06:29PM
If he thinks he's less likely to get murdered by moving out of hong kong he's an idiot. It is one of the safest cities in the world and out in rural china you can get kidnapped, gutted for transplant organs and turned into dogfood it's not some horror movie or rumor to scare the tourists. Motherfuckers will chop off their own feet just to up their panhandling cash.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @11:00PM (3 children)
Hong Kong has hardly any rural places. Leaving the city means going to China or another country. Prior to the handover from Britain, about a million people emigrated. [wikipedia.org] In spite of having had possession of Hong Kong for over 150 years, Britain didn't grant full citizenship to Hong Kongers, . A unique status called British Nationals (Overseas) was created for them. They didn't automatically have the right to emigrate to the UK. It looks like a racist policy to me.
In the first six months of 2017, there were 11 homicides [police.gov.hk], according to official statistics. That's in a territory with over 7 million inhabitants. In 2011, Hong Kong had the second-highest [livescience.com] life expectancy for women (after Japan) and men (after Australia).
(Score: 2) by n1 on Saturday July 29 2017, @11:41PM (2 children)
I spent some time in HK, in the worst parts of town because it was cheaper. The place I stayed was a bit bigger than the coffin cubicles, but not by much.
The chances of being murdered to death in HK is pretty slim, it's definitely the safest and most convenient city to travel around that ive ever been to. And like you said, there is no 'rural' or area not in the city.
Another example that im familiar with is the UK, if you don't want to live in the city, but your job is still there... Especially in London, be prepared to travel at least an hour each way to get slightly cheaper cost of living and a larger home, but the costs and living standards will be sacrificed through travel cost and time. So you end up in the same situation financially and emotionally, since you're stuck in your car for at least 2 hours every day, maybe 4 if there's a lot of traffic, which is not unusual in London.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:04AM
i will kill you until you die from it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @03:51AM
Yes, statistically speaking, you're only murdered to injury in HK.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday July 30 2017, @12:12AM (1 child)
While I somewhat agree with you on a preference against big cities (having
lived in several), I think the answer to your conundrum lies in the definition of "standard of living." If your metric is "have big house, big car, big yard," then sure, your standard of living goes up by moving away from the city.
But urbanites view other things as important for their standard -- being able to walk to shops and restaurants, having a greater variety of things close by (including stuff like nightlife activities), being able to get a slice of pizza at 3am, or get reasonably fresh mozzarella buffala, etc.etc. Leaving that stuff would lower their happiness and perceived living standard, even if they can buy more stuff or have a more roomy living space.
Of course, I'm not certain how all of this applies to Hong Kong.
BTW, IIRC, you're actually more likely to die a violent death in the countryside than in the city. Fatal injuries are a lot more common (especially driving, since everyone drives farther, faster, and drunker in rural areas), and they more than compensate for the decreased homicide risk.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @03:39AM
My house is 3500 square feet (325 square meters) so I can have a great big oven. I have money left over to buy a very nice oven. I can even build a walk-in pizza oven (heated by burning cannabis) and get a firefighting suit to enter it.
When I get pizza at 3am, I don't have to go outside. I can be naked. My wife can be naked. We can have swastikas painted on our foreheads, using her period blood.
I can have whatever type of pizza topping I want: bacon, walnut, cockroach, Skittles, popcorn, banana, gummy bears, liver... ANYTHING. I can have Limburger cheese. I can use tamarind paste for the sauce. I can put oatmeal in the crust. I can spice it with green tea, cocoa powder, and real saffron.
I can have the freshest mozzarella buffala because I have enough room on my property for the required Mediterranea Italiana buffalo. I can feed my Mediterranea Italiana buffalo 100% organic sprouts. Or, for a different taste, I can feed it shredded junk mail. I have options!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:23AM (3 children)
That's a great idea, we don't even need cities anymore. Lets all be farmers again.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 30 2017, @08:57AM (2 children)
You need to get out more. There is a whole wide world outside of major urban centers waiting for you to discover it does and always has existed. Maybe then you'd understand how Trump got elected.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @10:56PM
I had no idea the gov redistricted the rural areas into insane asylums. Weird, but whatever makes you happy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @05:51PM
So tell me when you lived in the city buzzard?
Cause I've lived in many suburban and rural places..and the only benefit I see is lower cost and obstinately more privacy. But the latter goes away really quick in rural areas I've noticed that the police seem to all be programmed to turn every interaction so have fun getting pulled over for driving late at night or having every noise complaint turn into an illegal/barely legal search of your residence.
I couldn't believe how much nicer life got in the city and how many retarded bills and possessions I was able to shed when I moved here. For awhile I was making enough to pay all my monthly bills every 2.5 days though I have to admit things are getting much more expensive now.
Also the only excuse anyone has for voting trump is a fundamental lack of understanding about the world beyond their neighborhood. Which is ok to have, nobody knows everything, but electing trump president was not ok and pretending he represents anyone except himself and distantly 2nd other rootless cosmopolitan elites is retarded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @02:57AM (1 child)
Great idea, I'm positive the rural peasants in China earn as much as Hong Kong city dwellers. They should just move for the instant quality of life increase. Why are they too stupid to think of it?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 30 2017, @08:54AM
Look up the word "commuter".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Sunday July 30 2017, @04:24AM (6 children)
Because when you have no money, the only thing you have left is social capital (friends and family). If you leave for "the country" you loose that one; final; precious possession.
And let's not forget you don't have enough money to even consider moving.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 30 2017, @08:56AM (4 children)
Which would be why I specifically mentioned lowering your standard of living temporarily to save enough to make the move.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Unixnut on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:19AM (3 children)
If your standard of living is to live in a 15sqft cube, how much lower can your standards go? I guess you can start sleeping on the street in order to save up, but soon you will lose your job due to poor hygiene and health reasons, assuming you don't get arrested for sleeping rough (not sure HK policy on homelessness).
Easy to say "oh, just reduce your standard of living, then emigrate", but much harder in practice to do, especially if you are near the bottom rungs of society already.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 30 2017, @12:12PM (1 child)
You're not very imaginative, are you?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @06:23PM
You don't seem to be either.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday July 30 2017, @05:15PM
I have lived out of my car before, a few times in life. Many people make it with even less.
Even if you don't have buddies who will let you shower at their place, you can still get a gym membership or shower for free on junior college campuses. I have seriously considered doing this again to save up some sheckels but my friends and family keep talking me out of it.
I've also considered living out of the smallest RV with a restroom (a surprising number of tech workers here do it), but that still means driving to work, and that gas bill would be a real bitch.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Monday July 31 2017, @06:26PM
He has no idea what's he's on about.
I know this must seem brutal to an essentially pampered idiot like buzzard who has barely left his back yard. But the fact is that the Chinese countryside is even worse.
I wish I could teleport him into a chair of some backroom working class hong kong drinking nook with a babelfish up his ass so he could amuse the grizzled old men with his genius idea that they can trim back luxuries for awhile and move to the countryside away from their coffin lockers and start living life to the fullest.
The reactions would be fucking priceless.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Monday July 31 2017, @05:58PM
Your ignorance is once again showing.
Rural china is like mad max, a lawless wasteland where the real government has minimal influence and the local governments are more like tiny mafias. Every interaction you have aside from friends or family will be overshadowed with constant underhanded scamming. Living hand to mouth is fairly normal.
People there would kill you for a chance to move outside and have some sort of opportunity. Children are kidnapped and sold for ransom.. or disfigured and sent in the streets to beg.. these are the places where you will get your kidneys stolen.
Powerful local governments! corportracy! wide open country as far as the eye can see.. a libertarian paradise!
Go move there.. please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @11:09PM (2 children)
Interesting word choice! If you think USA has a Chinese immigrration problem, just wait til you hear about Hong Kong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:11AM (1 child)
that kind of problem would be like new yorkers migrating to california...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @03:01AM
Except California has a separate system and you are not allowed to just move there if you are from New York.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @11:53PM (3 children)
Why do I need to click "READ CAPTION" to see the caption to these pictures? There is empty white space where the caption shows up... I wonder what national geographic cares about here other than the plight of these people.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/07/hong-kong-living-trapped-lam-photos/#/rooms-hong-kong-lam-photos-02.jpg [nationalgeographic.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @12:00AM (2 children)
WTF, now by clicking through some pics I ended up at a totally different story about Horseback Archery in Iran and the back button doesn't work... This is honestly one of the worst sites I have ever encountered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @03:43PM (1 child)
Many sites have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that SoylentNews is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that SoylentNews is the worst site, except for all those other sites that have been tried from time to time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @06:35PM
Soylent news works fine. If you have a site where I click through pictures in one article and end up in a new article without any way to return to the original one (which was never finished), that is just awful design. Not that they care, but I really will not be going to national geographic's website again after this experience.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday July 30 2017, @12:57AM (8 children)
I'm surprised the local government, or the fire department, isn't shutting these places down, they all look like some combination of fire hazard and death-traps. If there are any health- or safety-codes these things look like they would be in violation of all of them.
I wonder if these will ever really make it to the west, the Japanese capsule hotels (or whatever they are called) didn't really make the transition over here. I doubt I'd fit into one, I guess I could crawl into it but I'm sure if I could actually turn around and get out again.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:08AM
I was thinking the same thing about fire. It would be horrible.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @02:10AM
Already coming to Vancouver, Canada. You know how the width of a hallway, width of a doorway, height of steps, and number of steps in stairs are all pretty much standardized? Well, here in Vancouver they are making condos where the hallways and doors are way narrower than normal. Everything in the new "micro" condos feel a bit off kilter and weird. I blame it on the mayor, Gregor Robertson, who has been sucking land-developer cock for quite some time now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @03:44AM (4 children)
The civilized world uses concrete, steel, and glass. There is no fire hazard. Only the steel could even theoretically burn, but that needs pure oxygen at thousands of degrees.
You don't need sprinklers. If you are careful with the ventilation design, you don't even need alarms.
(Score: 4, Touché) by lentilla on Sunday July 30 2017, @04:29AM
I know! With judicious use of building materials with good sound-proofing qualities nobody even has to hear the screams.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Sunday July 30 2017, @08:56AM (2 children)
not everybody enjoys sleeping on a bed made of concrete, steel, and glass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @05:10PM (1 child)
Normal beds are fine.
In a proper building, a bed can completely burn without causing fire to spread throughout the building. There is no risk of structural failure. There is no need to actively suppress the fire, because it will stop when it runs out of fuel.
The only potential issue is smoke inhalation. Poor ventilation design allows the smoke to obstruct hallways and stairwells, and to get into other living units. Good ventilation design avoids that, so that people in other parts of the building need not be bothered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 01 2017, @01:54AM
So no carpeting allowed, no painting allowed, no gas supply, etc... Good luck trying to upgrade your in-wall cabling.
Two kids in a room sleeping in separate beds. A night light catches one bed on fire. A sprinkler would save the second kid (and possibly the first depending on the layout). Without one both kids burn to death.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 30 2017, @05:46PM
Like the local government in Rio is shutting down the favelas? Not. Not unless you have a plan for what to do with the people displaced by the shutting of the illegal habitats.
You can pass ordinances for minimum standards of living quarters, but once you let a large number of people start living below those standards, enforcing them creates all kinds of problems.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @09:51AM
And that is why you should be wary of proposals and policies that could lead to lower and lower living standards for more and more people.
Look at how much some countries spend on "defence" and yet they somehow don't have enough money to take care of their poorer citizens properly (that includes proper education for them and their children - which is very important in democracies).