ARRR!!!

Speaking of globalization, guess what I'm doing tonight?

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.

Kowloon Walled City

Hong Kong Island was obtained by the British in 1842 as part of the Treaty of Nanjing that ended the first Opium War. Though opium was illegal in Britain, the British fought this war with China to ensure that they would have a commodity that there was demand for in China in order to correct the huge trade imbalance created by British demand for tea, spices, porcelain, silk, art, and other Chinese goods. Opium was one of the first truly global commodities, with a production chain wrapping the world. Grown in India, processed in Afghanistan, shipped by Americans, and sold by Brits in East Asia, opium was one of the first 'vertically integrated' global products, with all aspects of production from farm to front controlled by the British Empire.

The British obtained Hong Kong from the Qing emperor to use as a port in this trade. After the second opium war, the mainland side of the harbor, Kowloon, was added to the British possession. In 1898, the British leased the New Territories and Lantau Island for 99 years from the Qing, to ensure adequate food and water supply. It was the expiration of this lease that led to the return of the entire possession in 1997, since to separate the New Territories from Kowloon and HK Island by then would have been like returning a body but trying to keep a head alive.

The Qing court retained one 0.026 sq. km. parcel of land in Kowloon, a toehold that was kept as a garrison to keep an eye on the British. Known as the Kowloon Walled City, this fortified settlement was abandoned after the Qing dynasty fell in 1911, but remained Chinese territory. At that time, the population of the walled city was approximately 700. In the ensuing decades, the city became a lawless place, full of Triad mobsters and a lively informal economy composed of unlicensed and illegal businesses, secret factories, labyrinthine corridors where no sunlight ever shone. Lacking any planning regulation, buildings and utility service were modified at will. Eventually, the Kowloon Walled City reached the highest recorded residential densities in human history, with an estimated population of 50,000 inhabitants in the 1980's.

The Chinese and the British agreed to demolish the city in 1987, and today the site is the Kowloon Walled City Park.

Hong Kong graveyards

Establishing and regulating cemeteries was a major issue in Hong Kong in the mid-19th century, due to plague. From roughly 1850 - 1870, formal cemeteries for the British, French, Jews, Muslims, Chinese Christians, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians had been established on the main island. In the 1890's, a separate cemetery was established for Eurasians. Hong Kong's growing Chinese merchant class was led by a few prominent Eurasians who played the role of compradore, first among them the Ho Tong family.

Sir Robert Ho Tung was Hong Kong's first millionaire, and the first person with Chinese ancestry allowed to live in the mid-levels on Mount Victoria. His brother, Ho Kom Tong, founded what is now known today at the Chiu Yuen cemetery, containing family plots of wealthy Eurasian families. Ho Kom Tong is my great-great-grandfather, so I was able to obtain access to the cemetery yesterday. Shown above is the family plot.

I visited the grave of my mother's mother's mother (great-grandmother) to pay my respects.