Great post! I think Hong Kong is dense in part because of geography, but mostly because of tax policy. The government has very low income and business tax, almost all of their revenue comes from land sale, so they intentionally limit supply by only very slowly allowing more of the land to be developed. Similarly, most of the HKS revenue comes from land development rather than subway fair:
Hm, I can sort of sees that but it still just feels so chaotic for a centrally planned place. I feel like fully understanding the picture would require understanding HK political history back through the sixties
Semi-Actual Hong Konger here. Just gonna dump my observations.
Duck is from Beijing
"I’m not sure whether that’s Mandarin or Cantonese." It's definitely Cantonese at a local wet market. Mandarin is mostly for tourists, or students I guess. Hong Kong is >90% Cantonese.
Urban planning: The land is all government owned, and is a pretty decent chunk of revenue. As you might think, it's a cartel bought by big business.
"They never bike in Hong Kong". People bike quite a lot, it's a recreational activity in Hong Kong, you won't see them on streets.
The urban planning part is interesting though in that the other places I know where the land was originally government owned (Singapore and Irvine) are a lot more planned and orderly. I wonder if HK being messier is a consequence of being more historically corrupt in triad days?
Great post! I think Hong Kong is dense in part because of geography, but mostly because of tax policy. The government has very low income and business tax, almost all of their revenue comes from land sale, so they intentionally limit supply by only very slowly allowing more of the land to be developed. Similarly, most of the HKS revenue comes from land development rather than subway fair:
https://www.mtr.com.hk/archive/corporate/en/press_release/PR-25-013-E.pdf
Hm, I can sort of sees that but it still just feels so chaotic for a centrally planned place. I feel like fully understanding the picture would require understanding HK political history back through the sixties
Semi-Actual Hong Konger here. Just gonna dump my observations.
Duck is from Beijing
"I’m not sure whether that’s Mandarin or Cantonese." It's definitely Cantonese at a local wet market. Mandarin is mostly for tourists, or students I guess. Hong Kong is >90% Cantonese.
Urban planning: The land is all government owned, and is a pretty decent chunk of revenue. As you might think, it's a cartel bought by big business.
"They never bike in Hong Kong". People bike quite a lot, it's a recreational activity in Hong Kong, you won't see them on streets.
The urban planning part is interesting though in that the other places I know where the land was originally government owned (Singapore and Irvine) are a lot more planned and orderly. I wonder if HK being messier is a consequence of being more historically corrupt in triad days?
Yeah, I did see a few biking recreationally, should probably have been more specific there.
Interesting about the ducks.