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posted by n1 on Saturday July 29 2017, @09:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the final-nail dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:39PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:39PM (#546453)

    Plus you're a lot less likely to get murdered to death.

    Is there another outcome for murder in rural areas?

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  • (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

      by Gaaark (41) on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:58PM (#546463) Journal

      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

    by i286NiNJA (2768) on Monday July 31 2017, @06:29PM (#547282)

    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.