Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 77 posts

Re: Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods

#41

Post by EliRivers »

cmsmith wrote: post #32
spacehunt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And most of them have a choice of multiple ISPs offering 1Gbps FTTH for about US$20-40 a month...

Of course they do. The cost to run fiber to a building is largely independent of the number of units in the building. So it makes perfect sense that higher housing density leads to lower costs and higher speeds.

Based on my experience living in a small town in England five minutes walk away from rolling, open fields, I suggest that what leads to lower costs and higher speeds is actual competition between broadband suppliers, rather than regulatory capture and cartels. I understand that it's common in the US for high-density housing areas to have very little choice, poor service, and to pay a fortune for their internet.

Re: Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods

#42

Post by spacehunt »

briandon wrote: post #29
jmduke wrote: post #4

I used to -- and still do, to some effect -- fetishize living in a highrise. I was a suburban kid who grew up in a boring (and, in retrospect, wonderful) house surrounded by other boring houses -- I watched Seinfeld and Frasier, and loved the idea of living in an apartment complex, where prospective friends and plotlines were only yards and floors away. Looking at Michael's pictures, I'm struck with a particular sens…

Spacehunt and gotrecruit are on the money. Even if you spend 3-4x more than the average household's entire monthly income so that you live in a flat that's almost got half as much usable space as a typical suburban home in, for example, the US, you've got your neighbors to contend with. The exorbitant rent or mortgage that you're paying only buys you a bit of extra elbow room (likely translated into more bedrooms and…

There are nicer neighbourhoods though where you don't have to deal with most of that, where buildings are properly maintained, people keep quiet after 11pm on most nights, and you don't have go on the sidewalk for the walk to the train station.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating it here. In fact whenever I'm back in Melbourne I miss having an entire shopping centre plus the train station literally just downstairs from home.

Re: Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods

#44

Post by evertonfuller »

smartwater wrote: post #2

Up to 60 floors / 20,000 people in an apartment building? I didn't realize that existed. I don't think you'd find an apartment building in the US that has even a fraction of that. The largest hotel in New York is the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. It has 49 floors / 1,949 rooms, which I don't think comes close to 20,000 people; I couldn't find the exact occupancy.

Huh? The W Times Square has 55 floors.

Re: Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods

#45

Post by creamyhorror »

briandon wrote: post #29
jmduke wrote: post #4

I used to -- and still do, to some effect -- fetishize living in a highrise. I was a suburban kid who grew up in a boring (and, in retrospect, wonderful) house surrounded by other boring houses -- I watched Seinfeld and Frasier, and loved the idea of living in an apartment complex, where prospective friends and plotlines were only yards and floors away. Looking at Michael's pictures, I'm struck with a particular sens…

Spacehunt and gotrecruit are on the money. Even if you spend 3-4x more than the average household's entire monthly income so that you live in a flat that's almost got half as much usable space as a typical suburban home in, for example, the US, you've got your neighbors to contend with. The exorbitant rent or mortgage that you're paying only buys you a bit of extra elbow room (likely translated into more bedrooms and…

I've lived in public housing in Singapore and have experienced the noise (and sometimes worse) of neighbors above and below. The cheapness of construction is definitely a factor in the experience - in nicer (private) apartments, there's less disturbance, and less chance of being dripped on by an air conditioner or hung-out washing.

That said, when I visited Hong Kong, I stood at the base of the gigantic blocks of housing there and marveled at how they were the equivalent of small towns. They're:

- significantly taller than most Singaporean public housing

- have more shops packed on their ground levels

- packed much closer (very little space between blocks)

so they really feel a whole different level of dense (and Singapore is very dense already). Staring up at their brutally uniform towering shapes is quite the feeling. If they were interconnected and had open corridors between blocks, I could imagine playing a rather interesting game of tag across many buildings. I guess that's pretty much what the Kowloon Walled City[1] was.

Dense megacities are interesting in their own right, even if they're not nice to live in (as dystopic cities in cyberfunk fiction show). Now I live in a house, but I miss the conveniences of being able to walk to a shop or bus stop/subway stop in 5 minutes.

[1] Incidentally, an arcade in Kawasaki, Japan recreated the Kowloon Walled City - check out the rather interesting photographs at http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan - it's going on my list of places to visit.

Re: Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods

#46

Post by ddeck »

hoi wrote: post #36

One of the reasons for such high housing costs is the influx of investment money. For example, this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beverly_Hills apartment complex is mostly empty. Most of the houses bought up by rich mainlanders looking to park their money somewhere that would still grow their investment. Secondly, there are cheaper alternatives. Living in teh New Territories can be tremendously more cash efficient…

Correct.

What few realize though is that the archaic pegged exchange rate is the key contributor to this. In a typical exchange regime, such an influx of capital would push the exchange rate higher and provide a balancing effect. Instead, you get asset price inflation while wages in local currency remain flat. This makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. [1]

Compounding the effect is the inability to have any kind of independent monetary policy since the rate is pegged and there are no currency controls. Consider an economy with strong growth, 6% inflation, and interest rates on home mortgages of .....~1%? Welcome to HK.

[1] http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-18/hong-kong-s-weal...

Re: Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods

#47

Post by twelvechairs »

kamaal wrote: post #35
briandon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spacehunt and gotrecruit are on the money. Even if you spend 3-4x more than the average household's entire monthly income so that you live in a flat that's almost got half as much usable space as a typical suburban home in, for example, the US, you've got your neighbors to contend with. The exorbitant rent or mortgage that you're paying only buys you a bit of extra elbow room (likely translated into more bedrooms and…

My dad always tells me any apartments look glossy only in their first year of construction. After that, things start to degrade pretty quickly. Start with paint, then window glasses and then leaks and then what not. All the best trying to get every one to pay up to fix the issues related to the general apartment building. It never happens. Unless you are living in a super luxury apartment, I see high rise residential…

Hong Kong high rises are immensely varied. there's a huge amount of postwar public housing of a pretty crummy (if solid) construction. there's also some new apartments that are of a much higher quality than you'd generally see in the west. there's also some new crummy apartments (sometimes marketed as high quality).

space is at a premium though and needs must. also - this density is only possible because the government once appropriated and consolidated so much land

Re: Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods

#49

Post by ddeck »

nostromo wrote: post #15
smartwater wrote: post #2

Up to 60 floors / 20,000 people in an apartment building? I didn't realize that existed. I don't think you'd find an apartment building in the US that has even a fraction of that. The largest hotel in New York is the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. It has 49 floors / 1,949 rooms, which I don't think comes close to 20,000 people; I couldn't find the exact occupancy.

I found a mention online that the average household size in Hong Kong is 3 people (in 2006). So that's 20,000 people over 60 floors, 3 per apartment. That's 100 apartments on a floor! They must be incredibly compact if those numbers are correct.

The 20k figure would be referring to the development, which would be several "blocks" (i.e. independent buildings crammed next to each other).

The average household size is still 3 (bit lower in public housing) with average living space per person of ~140 square feet. Keep in mind that those 140 square feet are measured based on the outside of the building!

Re: Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods

#50

Post by ddeck »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #8

Also, let's face it. It's very difficult to reason about the interior of a building from pictures of its exterior. Who knows how nice these apartments are? I grant that many of them are not probably up to the standards Americans are used to, but the mildew from the tropical climate and various other factors conspire to make things look worse than they are, I bet.

There have been a number of photo exhibits showing exactly that. I assure you, things are worse than you imagine.

http://petapixel.com/2013/02/19/cramped-apartments-in-hong-k...

Post reply on HN