Greetings, and welcome to the next installment of my Urban
Development in Hong Kong series. This time, I will be talking about
Fanling, which is an area in the northern part of the New Territories.
Currently, this place is primarily made up of residential buildings for
people who work in Hong Kong but either can’t or don’t want to live there. It’s kind of like people who want to work in
New York City but have to commute in from New Jersey, except that in Hong Kong
the bridges don’t close down when the local mayor pisses off the governor’s
office.
However, Fanling wasn't always a
residential hub. At first, Fanling used
to be comprised of small villages that oversaw vast farmlands, like those shown at right. Families
would live in the small houses and work together to harvest the crops every
year. Then in the 1980’s, the local
government decided to redefine Fanling as a primarily industrial area when
the manufacturing boom hit. Urbanization
rapidly took hold replacing the quaint farms with factories, massive housing
complexes and other types of public projects.
However, the manufacturing boom died down just as quickly as it started
and area was stuck with a multitude of empty factories and an over-abundance of
out-of-work residents. As a result, the
government decided to re-redefine Fanling as a residential place for commuter
workers.
During this time, developers were able to
buy up most of the land and re-purpose them as apartment buildings. Most of the land bought was either farmland
or private lots given to young men through something called the Small House
Policy. This policy stems from a village
tradition that when a man reaches the age of 18, he is entitled to a volume of
land measuring about 30’ x 40’ x 25’ upon which to build his home. The premise behind the policy was to have the
young man live independently (and eventually with his own family) in his house
while allowing him to stay with the village to help cultivate the fields. However, once the manufacturing boom
occurred, residential developers sought these plots of land to build lots and
lots of apartment buildings for the influx of workers. Of course, the enticement of money easily
swayed the 18-year-old guys to sell. This
led to the mass construction of these apartment buildings, called ding houses (shown below).
When analyzing this, I noticed three
problems that this rapid urbanization led to.
The first one is simple: lost lands to farm for food. With massive amounts of land being bought for
urban development, this left very little for farming. Currently, Hong Kong has to import almost all
of its food, so cutting down on farmable land is not conducive to feeding its
growing population. Given that there are
also several buildings devoid of tenants, perhaps city planners ought to focus
on filling buildings rather that building them.
The second problem is the loss of the next
generation of farm workers. When the
developers pay the 18-year-old guys for their land, the newly rich kids move out of
the village to go to the cities or other countries. This leaves a generational gap in farm
workers that will ultimately lead to a massive shortage of people able to
properly work the fields. So the
question is what’s worse; no land to grow foods on or no people to plant and
harvest them?
The third problem is a little more subdued
than the others: the loss of cultural identity.
To illustrate this point, look at the following pictures of newly
constructed ding houses:
Despite being located in
Hong Kong, these houses look like they could belong at any residential development in
the world. In fact, many of the old
buildings in these villages were torn down in order to accommodate these new
buildings. These old buildings may have
been unpleasant but they were also distinct.
Take for example this old temple shown at right.
It is small and surrounded by the new ding houses, yet it still stands
out because it looks like it belongs there.
If developers were just a little historically aware, they might be able
to take the old architecture and incorporate it into their designs to make a
Twenty-First century style of rural village.
An iconic look that also serves the needs of the public is something
that I very much appreciate in architecture and construction. Unfortunately, the only thing most developers
are concerned with is their bottom line, so it looks like the cheapest solution
is the only one locals will be getting. That
is unless the public does something about it, but I digress.
So those are my thoughts
on the rapid urbanization of Fanling.
Next time, I’ll be talking about my trip to Pok Fu Lam village and Waterfall
Bay. Thanks for reading and I hope to
see you soon.
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