A lesson from Hong Kong

By Anson Xu

On the second day of the new year I flew to Hong Kong, one of my dream cities.

I had imagined Hong Kong as a city surrounded by the blue ocean, covered by vast greenery and with numerous natural and artificial beautiful scenes. I expected it to combine the cultures of both the East and the West since it is renowned as a global fashion centre.

When my plane descended over the bridges connecting the islands in the evening, I saw that the city was dotted with millions of lights, just like stars shining in the sky. This first impression was not bad.
But next morning it became a disaster, as I walked out of my hotel located in North Point.

I was horrified by the scene of the city before me. I could only think of one word in my brain: mess. I was prepared for Hong Kong to be very crowded since every metropolis is. I had thought that I would be able to bear it because I am from Shanghai. But I was wrong. I was totally shocked by the mess and breathlessness of this city.

Every street was jammed with shops and every shop was jammed with goods, let alone the crowds of stalls on the roadsides. The whole city looked like a grocery. Streets were narrow and I didn't find a two-way road all day. People struggled to throw themselves into the metro or buses and cars could hardly move in the downtown.

This city is absolutely over-constructed. People should have realized space was limited when pursuing more living facilities. The overloaded land endangers the prosperity of the city. Nobody will favour living or sightseeing in a salmon can.
I reckon there is an important lesson for Shanghai to learn from Hong Kong, given that Shanghai is undergoing speedy development and massive urban construction.

Careful planning is essential not only because over-heated urban construction brings economic risks but also because it could lead to the same embarrassing situation as now in Hong Kong.

Good city planning is required for the growth of a metropolis and the designer should look forward not 10 years but 100 years or more. We can never recreate the land once we have exhausted it. More skyscrapers are not a solution for the city's living environment.

Satellite cities should be built to relieve the pressure on the centre. It is not wise to lay down laws prohibiting immigration but the government definitely should support and encourage reducing the density of the downtown.

Fortunately, Shanghai is not an island city like Hong Kong, so we have opportunities to do better in 20 years' time - roughly the same period Shanghai is now believed to lag behind Hong Kong in respect to its level of urban development. Think ahead.

(The author is an in-house legal counsel in an international investment company in Shanghai)