This image is from Google Maps and depicts Maritime Square on Tsing Yi, the island where my grandmother lives. I chose it because I think it is the embodiment of the new millennium Hong Kong urban development.
The entire development is built by the MTR Corporation, a Government-owned publicly traded company that is primarily known for running the Hong Kong metro system of the same name.
The primary attraction of this development is the eponymous Maritime Square Mall, a large five-storey indoor shopping arcade. It is attached to Tsing Yi Station, a metro station on the overground Tung Chung Line and there is a small bus interchange on the ground floor.
The mall has shops including a grocery store, around a dozen restaurants, a Marks & Spencer, bakeries, clothing retailers, electronics stores, a few banks, and some miscellaneous other stores. Notably NOT in the building is a school, otherwise, you might even be able to spend your whole life without leaving it.
There are several towers extending out of the main mall complex which contain hundreds of units of (unaffordable) housing. I think there is a botanical garden on the roof, too. The entrance to these towers is inside the mall, where there’s just a lift lobby where you’d expect a shop to be. The lift lobby is closed to the public; a keycard or code is required to enter.
I think it’s a similar concept to a 15-minute city, but more like a 15-minute building.
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Row after row of copy-pasted high-rise apartment buildings does not spark joy.
Unfortunately, Hong Kong has so little buildable land, its terrain hilly with scattered flat patches, that this approach is the only one that gets you enough units for everyone. Last I heard though property prices were absolutely skyrocketing.
More to the point, a huge mall does not compare with green outdoor space to walk around in. On the other hand, there’s at least four months each year when outside is a fucking steam oven and a mall with air conditioning is 100% where you want to be.
There are lots of similarities between the overcrowding in Hong Kong, and the “mouse utopia” experiment:
Increasingly more people in Hong Kong are having mental issues. Lots of them live in stressful life, partly due to the crazy work culture, but the overcrowding with tiny apartments does not help.
