New Towns

In 1960 Hong Kong began establishing new towns in the land outside of the existing, densely developed settlements of Kowloon and Hong Kong island. Extending all the way to the border of the New Territories, dozens of settlements were established on previously agricultural or unused land, the most recent being North Lantau in 1997. The idea of creating new urban areas from whole cloth rather than extending existing urban areas is a concept that dates from medieval Europe, when city sizes were restricted by walkability, food and water supply, and defensibility. European countries, with the exception of the Netherlands, ceased establishing new towns during the Renaissance. Much later, after the industrial revolution, new town planning was revived in Britain by Ebenezer Howard.

Howard's desire to create new towns was a direct response to the grim living conditions of urban Britain. Urban populations had increased dramatically as a result of the high demand for workers in industrial centers, producing major overcrowding, fire risk, public health problems, and so on. Where once living in the center of the city was desirable, those who could afford to began retreating to the urban fringe, forming suburbs. However, employment was still concentrated downtown. Howard conceived of new Garden Cities that would be self-sufficient nodes of both housing and jobs, proximate to major cities for communication, specialty services, and the like, but with no need for daily regional travel.

There's a lot more to Howard's work that I won't go into here. Try here if you want more. Suffice to say that his influence is still strong with British town planners today, and so when Hong Kong reached a breaking point in terms of crowding, new towns were created as the solution. The population was dispersed to the New Territories in a series of settlements, many of which were linked to Kowloon by rail. Creating new towns rather than extending or adapting existing urban areas gave planners almost total freedom to shape the settlements, with the critical goal being to achieve jobs-housing balance, the necessary criterion for self-sufficiency.

Though Hong Kong's attempts at new town planning are the most ambitious ever implemented in the world (Howard himself only built two in England), with nine new towns settled over 40 years by a government with total control over the supply of land and an incredibly successful public transit system (60 - 85% of trips in Hong Kong are via transit), the towns by and large have failed. Though they did succeed in expanding the supply of housing, a jobs-housing balance has never been achieved and the new towns represent the Hong Kong version of suburban living. In Tseung Kwan O, residents are primarily families with young children. Parents commute to Kowloon or Hong Kong island for work. Rather than a sleepy village or a hustling CBD, the shopping mall is the center of life.