Utrecht University

A Liveable Compact City? Local Perspectives from Hong Kong

Master of Science in Spatial Planning

Faculty of Geosciences

Utrecht University

Ka Sik Tong

February 2018

A Liveable Compact City? Local Perspectives from Hong Kong

Master of Science in Spatial Planning

November 2017

Ka Sik Tong

Student ID: 5922402 [email protected]

Supervised by

Professor Dr. Jochen Monstadt

Utrecht University

Faculty of Geosciences

PREFACE

This dissertation is original, unpublished, independent work by Ka Sik Tong.

This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Master of Science at Utrecht University. This research described herein was conducted under the supervision of Professor Jochen Monstadt in the Department of Geoscience, Utrecht University, between August 2017 and March 2018.

Ka Sik Tong

March 2018

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

2017 August marked the start of this 7-months long journey, and I am finally writing this note of thanks. It has been an intense period for me, in all aspects. It is much tougher, but it also means much greater than I thought it would be. I would like to at this moment, express my sincere thanks to all precious people who have supported and helped me so much throughout this period.

I am incredibly grateful to my supervisor Professor Dr Jochen Monstadt for his guidance and support throughout these months. I would like to also, express my thanks to all interviewees who try their best in helping me, providing all the great information for this study.

I would like to thank my parents, who have been supporting me throughout the two years long journey. You are always there for me, warm and supportive.

I would also like to express my sincere thanks to my dear friends, Koey Chu, Kelly Tang, Jojo Chan, Ho- Tsun Ip, Kyungmin Lee and Janice Wong who have been listening to my grumbles all the time but remain to be here with me. Their unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout the two years of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis make it possible for me to achieve this. Thank you. ABSTRACT

Proponents of the compact city concept have been promoting high-density and mixed-use developments as the critical solutions to countervail the negative externalities of urban sprawl. It is suggested as a model which could bring about mixed urban land-uses, less car dependency, thus reducing energy consumption and preserving the environment. Herein, the implementation of a compact city model would be able to provide a sustainable and liveable environment to urban residents. However, not everyone appreciates the high-density way of compact city development. Critical appraisals have pointed to different trade-offs between urban density and liveability, such as failures in providing affordable housing, shortages in urban green space or overcrowding in the urban residential area (Burton,1999; Neuman,2005).

While various cities in East and Southeast Asia have decided to develop in a high-density way emphasising the benefits of this compact urban form, the benefits or trade-offs of this urban form on people’s urban living conditions are yet to be validated. While much of this debate dates back from the late 1990s and early 2000s (Jenks & Burgess, 2000; Jenks, Burton, & Williams, 1996; Jacobs, 1961; Williams, Burton, & Jenks, 1996; Burton, 2002; Burton,2000), it is time to review the validity of such claims in view of the considerable growth in urban densification in many East and Southeast Asian cities over the last few decades.

In this research, claims and observation on these benefits and trade-offs that are previously suggested by urban experts, scholars, and more would be reviewed through the lens of a case study. By zooming into an exemplary, well-developed compact city, we would have a chance to validate the theoretical and hypothetical claims on the benefits or trade-offs of compact development form on people’s daily life. Based on a detailed qualitative case study of the city of Hong Kong and several expert interviews, this research identifies rising liveability concerns of the high-density compact urban form, providing critical insights into ‘compact city’ debates.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface 3

Acknowledgements 4

Abstract 5

List of Tables 10

List of Figures 11

Chapter 1. Introduction 12

1.1 Background 12

1.1.1 The Evolving Notion of Compact City 12

1.1.2 Centrism Development 13

1.1.3 The Birth of Compact city concept 13

1.1.4 Compact City revamped as a ‘Sustainable’ Approach 14

1.1.5 The rise of Compact City in Asia 14

1.1.6 The growing development of high-density compact cities 15

1.2 Problem Statement 16

1.3 Research Value 17

1.4 Objectives and Research Questions 18

Chapter 2. Literature Review 20

2.1 Reviewing the Urban Form of Compact City 20

2.1.1 Compact City Urban Form 20

2.1.2 High-density compact city as a common form of compact city adopted in recent years 22

2.2 Urban Liveability of Compact City 22

2.2.1 The evolving notion of urban liveability 23

2.2.2 Hypotheses & Observation: The local benefits 24

2.2.3 Hypotheses& Observation: The Trade-offs 25

2.2.4 Bottom-up approach in evaluating urban liveability: Empirical research in field 29

2.3.1 Claims Identified 31 2.4 The Research Gap 33

Chapter 3 Methodology 35

3.1 Research Paradigm 35

3.2 Research Strategy 36

3.3.1 Hypothesis-testing Case Study 36

3.3.2 Site Selection 38

3.4 Data collection methods and Sampling 39

3.4.1 Interview 40

3.4.2 Other Supportive Data 43

3.5 Framework for data analysis 43

3.6 Limitations and potential problems 44

Chapter 4 Urban Form Analytics 46

4.1 The Macro-context of high density compact development in Hong Kong 46

4.1.1 The origin (Reason, tracing back to 1950s) 46

4.1.2 The policy (development policy) 46

4.1.3 The resulting outcome 49

4.2 Urban Living Environment of Kwun Tong (Field Data) 49

4.2.1 History and Background 49

4.2.2 Urban Form 50

Chapter 5 Case Study Results: Hypothesis Testing 57

5.1 Urban Liveability can benefit through 57

5.1.1 Sufficient and accessible protected green spaces for public 57

5.1.2 Affordable and less polluting public transportation 58

5.1.3 High accessibility to infrastructures and local services 63

5.1.4 Small conclusion 64

5.2 Urban liveability can decrease due to 64

5.2.1 Housing concerns 64 5.2.2 Failure in pollution reduction and intensified impact of noise pollution 70

5.2.3 In-city insufficient green or open space 71

5.2.4 High-density induced health and well-being impact of residents 72

Chapter 6 Discussion and Implication 70

6.1 Green space protection policy and the rising housing price 76

6.2 Intensification and its impact 77

6.2.1 Impact on infrastructure 77

6.2.2 Impact on transportation 77

6.3 Housing problem and balance 78

6.5 Conclusion - Hypothesis 3: The trade-offs and balance 79

6.5.1 Strategic Trade-off in Hong Kong 80

6.5.2 Benefits brought by the compact urban form 80

Chapter 7 Conclusion 78

7.1 Research Objectives: Summary of Findings and Conclusions 81

7.1.1 Research Objective 1: Literature stated local benefits and trade-offs 81

7.1.2 Research Objective 2: Case studies of local benefits and trade-offs 82

7.1.3 Research Objective 3: Reflect on the conceptual debate 83

7.2 Insights and Recommendations for further research 84

Bibliography 85

Appendixes 92

Appendix A Template of Interview Questions 92

(I) Integrated/Housing 92

(II) Interview for transportation 93

(III) Interview for health wellbeing 93

(IV) Interview for Community Experts 94

(V) Interview for Local Residents 97

Appendix B Experts Interview Transcripts 99 (I) Transcript - Mr Alfred Ho (Urban Researcher) 99

(II) Transcript – Dr Edward Yiu (Housing) 109

(III) Transcript – Mr Simon Ng (Transportation) 118

(IV) Transcript – Ms Carine Lai (Open Space) 126

(V) Transcript – Dr Corine Wong (Health and Well-being) 138

Appendix C Kwun Tong Community Expert and Local Residents Transcripts 149

(I) Transcript – Mr Yuen, Living in Kwun Tong 149

(II) Transcript – Ms Ip 160

(III) Transcript – Ms Chan 166

(IV) Transcript – Mr Chow 172

(V) Transcript – Ms Lam 173

(VI) Transcript – Mr Chan 176

(VII) Transcript – Mr Cheung 177

(VIII) Transcript – Mr Chu 178

(IX) Transcript – Mr Kam 180

(X) Transcript – Mrs Fong 182

(XI) Transcript – Mrs Kwok 185

LIST OF TABLES Table 1List of identified claims ...... 32

Table 2 Experts Interviews ...... 42

Table 3 Community Experts Interviews ...... 42

Table 4 Residents Interviews ...... 43

Table 5 Housing Figures Hong Kong and Kwun Tong (Hong Kong Government, 2017) ...... 51

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Model of Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin for Paris (Left) (Corbusier, 1925) and 1963 An aerial view of So Uk Public Housing Estate in Hong Kong(Right) (Teoalida, 2011) ...... 15

Figure 2 Annual rate of urban spatial expansion in East Asia (World Bank Group, 2015) ...... 15

Figure 3 Mean Qualitative Results Scores by Outcome - Compact City Characteristics (Ahlfeldt & Pietrostefani, 2017) ...... 28

Figure 4 Model for analysing impacts of high density compact urban form on liveability ...... 33

Figure 5 Qualitative data analysis process for High density compact city liveability case study ...... 44

Figure 6 Geographical Distribution of green belt zones and country parks in Hong Kong, 2005 (Tang, Wong, & Lee, Green Belt, Countryside Conservation and Local Politics: A Hong Kong Case Study, 2005) ...... 48

Figure 7 Map of Kwun Tong District (Google Map, 2018) ...... 50

Figure 8 Site Photo Illustrating the Mixed-use housing condition in Kwun Tong ...... 52

Figure 9 Outline Zoning Plan of Kwun Tong ...... 53

Figure 10 Site Photo of Housing Form in Kwun Tong ...... 54

Figure 11 Map of Parks (Left) and Garden and Sitting Area (Right) (Hong Kong Public Space Initiative, 2016) ...... 54

Figure 12 Site Photos on Transportation Hub ...... 55

Figure 13 Kwun Tong Town Centre Urban Renewal Site Map ...... 55

Figure 14 Vehicles Registration Number (Transportation Department, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, 2017) ...... 62

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND Since World War II, urban sprawl has become one of the most dominant trends in urbanisation, where development occurs in the form of rapid population growth in suburbs with a low morphological density (European Environment Agency, 2006). Scholars have strongly criticised the excessive sprawling outwards for inefficient use of land resources and exploitation of natural resources. Because of the growing concern on sustainable development, urban planning reacts by suggesting development in a compact form, which encourages a high-density and mixed-use urban form. In contrast to urban sprawling, this form was said to, by introducing economic density, mixed land use and morphological density, bring in less car dependency, thus reducing energy consumption, while also preserving the environment. Rooting in the current sustainability imperatives of resource efficiency, the idea of compact development had been associated with the concept of sustainable development, regaining attention from policymakers. Global policymakers were expecting it to play a role in sustainable development (World Bank, 2010; OECD, 2010). However, despite the positive outlook from policymakers, many scholars have been actively engaged in the debate on whether a compact city is sustainable or not. Critics have identified negative impacts of urban compactness on urban liveability, suggesting compact city may lead to a reduced domestic living space, poor health conditions of citizens, lack of affordable housing and even lack of feasibility as it runs counter to the desires of residents. Also, the outcome urban form could have various environmental consequences which resulted in a decrease of quality of life (Burton,1999; Gordon & Richardson,1997; Breheny, 1995). Some suggested that compact city is, all in all, a fallacy, where a compact city is “neither a necessary or sufficient condition for a city to be sustainable” (Neuman,2005). The debate between proponents and critics has been continuing until now. Even though there is yet to be a definite conclusion, facing challenges such as population growth induced housing shortage or environmental degradation, cities officials have attempted to develop following the 'compact city theory'.

1.1.1 THE EVOLVING NOTION OF COMPACT CITY A compact city refers to an urban form, which by densifying the urban living environment, to reduce land and material resource consumption. Since the emerge of the concept of ‘sustainable development’, where cities have been criticised by their overarching resource consumption and the sprawling damage to the environment, the compact city has become one of the hot topics among governments. As sustainable development has been earning an increasingly important position in political agendas, urban form of cities was no longer a technical research element to be researched only by academic researchers. Instead, governments have followed the trend and focus a lot more on the ideal urban form of cities, aiming to identify a form which could achieve their political ideal. According to Breheny, this trend back in the late 1990s has therefore created a “legitimate, indeed profound, research question [which is] is whether such compaction – ‘the compact city’- will deliver the gains demanded by the politicians” (ibid., 1996). Therefore, since the 1990s, the compact city model has gradually chained up with sustainable development, becoming a shared important discussion topic in both academia and political realm.

The active involvement of political realm in this topic has created a unique research environment for this topic, where the impact is extensive, which could also be noted in the measurement of ‘liveability’ (and this will be further explained in section 2.2). However, before moving forward to explain the different approaches of academia and governments to compact development, a more detailed elaboration on the history of ‘compact city’ would be essential to move on.

1.1.2 CENTRISM DEVELOPMENT Tracing back to the birth of the concept of ‘compact city’ goes further back to early 20th century, where centrism and decentrism were competing against each other, believing that their ideal would achieve a better quality of life for people. Decentrism was suggested as an urban form as opposed to the overcrowded, poor hygiene, and congested industrial towns. Among all the decentrists, the most famous one was no other than Howard. He first suggested the idea of ‘Garden City’ in his book “Garden Cities of Tomorrow’ back in 1898, opposing the idea of creating highly dense industrial towns, and criticizing that high dense industrial towns in London were ‘ulcers on the very face of our beautiful island’. He suggested a more decentralize development pattern, where each city shall not house more than 32000 people, with a population density of 25-30 people per acre (Howard, 1902). Howard in his publication shows a deep concern on the relationship between environment and people, highly emphasises the social aspect of cities, particularly the well-being of people. While centrists, represented by French Architect Le Corbusier, emphasise that increasing urban densities can solve existing industrial town problems. He suggested that it is essential to increase the density in the city centre and to improve local transportation, by doing so they could provide more open areas in the city. He is also concern on the surging demand created by rapidly increasing automobile, which he believed that the existed urban form in Europe could not handle, providing further support to his grand plan to replace the city centre with high rise buildings back in the 1920s and 1930s (Hall, 1996). As mentioned by Hall in his work, Le Corbusier work was not being valued until 30 years later, where his prediction became true, and transportation had become a problem increasingly in a lot of cities (1996). 'Compact city', the concept was first suggested by Dantzig and Saaty back in 1973, generally being considered as a descendant of centrism development.

1.1.3 THE BIRTH OF COMPACT CITY CONCEPT Dantzig and Saaty were widely considered as the first to suggest the term ‘compact city’ they discussed and proposed an ideological urban form which could make more effective use of the vertical dimension and the time dimension of cities (1973). They proposed a relatively ambitious conceptual city where it is composed of 8 levels, housing 250,000 people and can be expanded to a population of 2 million by adjusting the building height and diameter, containing commercial, industrial, entertainment and services centres which are reachable on foot or by an efficient mass-transit system. (OECD, 2012; Breheny, 1996). This ideological urban form was not gaining much recognition in 1973 when it was first published. However, the concept soon became one of the major discussion topics among governors and academics in the early 21th century, owing to the growing concern and emphasis of the global community on the form of development. In particular, after the publication of Brundtland report: Our Common Future, back in 1987 and the 150 countries signed Rio Declaration in 1993 which emphasizes on the necessity for the world to commit to sustainable development, the concept of ‘compact city’ turns into a ‘big solution’ for many, reviving the debate between centrism and decentrism, but in different terminologies, ‘compactness’ and ‘liveability’.

1.1.4 COMPACT CITY REVAMPED AS A ‘SUSTAINABLE’ APPROACH Since World War II, urban sprawl has become one of the most dominant trends in urbanisation, where development occurs in the form of rapid population growth in suburbs with a low morphological density (European Environment Agency, 2006). Scholars have strongly criticised the excessive sprawling outwards for inefficient use of land resources and exploitation of natural resources. Because of the growing concern on sustainable development, urban planning reacts by suggesting development in a compact form, which encourages a high-density and mixed-use urban form. In contrast to urban sprawling, this form was said to, by introducing economic density, mixed land use and morphological density, bring in less car dependency, thus reducing energy consumption, while also preserving the environment. Rooting in the current sustainability imperatives of resource efficiency, the idea of compact development had been associated with the concept of sustainable development, regaining attention from policymakers. Global policymakers were expecting it to play a role in sustainable development (World Bank, 2010; OECD, 2010). However, despite the positive outlook from policymakers, many scholars have been actively engaged in the debate on whether a compact city is sustainable or not. Critics have identified negative impacts of urban compactness on urban liveability, suggesting the compact way of development may lead to a reduced domestic living space, poor health conditions of citizens, lack of affordable housing and even lack of feasibility as it runs counter to the desires of residents. Also, the outcome urban form could have various environmental consequences which resulted in a decrease of quality of life (Burton,1999; Gordon & Richardson,1997; Breheny, 1995). Some suggested that compact city is, all in all, a fallacy, where a compact city is “neither a necessary or sufficient condition for a city to be sustainable” (Neuman,2005). The debate between proponents and critics has been continuing until now. Even though there is yet to be a definite conclusion, facing challenges such as population growth induced housing shortage or environmental degradation, cities officials have attempted to develop following the 'compact city theory'.

1.1.5 THE RISE OF COMPACT CITY IN ASIA Although the concept of compact city, was initially from the European states, it was being accepted more widely on the other side of the world – East and Southeast Asia in recent years. Back in the time where Le Corbusier first suggested this concept of compact high-rise city in the 1920s, governors, planners, social scientists and architect were stressing on the ill effects of high-density development and remain resistant to the idea as they associate density with crimes or social dysfunction1. This general discontent towards high-density compact city could be a fair reason for the less prominent development of high-density compact cities in Europe. However, owing to the surging population growth and the land shortage concern, the ideal form suggested by Le Corbusier was becoming growingly dominant in the East and Southeast Asian region. In particular, cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore had started to develop housing estates since the mid 1950s in the form that highly resemble the design of Le Corbusier, see Figure 1.

1 This fear of density was also being mentioned in Jane Jacobs phenomenal work ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ in 1961. This work indicates the starting point of where western society started to view ‘density’ in a different way. (Jacobs, 1961)

Figure 1 Model of Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin for Paris (Left) (Corbusier, 1925) and 1963 An aerial view of So Uk Public Housing Estate in Hong Kong(Right) (Teoalida, 2011)

Hong Kong, the Le Corbusier influenced city, is being considered as one of the exemplars of compact city. It is well-known for its well established public transport system (Newman & Kenworthy, 1989; Zhang, 2000; Jenks & Burgess, 2000) and for later becoming an inspiration for other cities which faced similar struggles, such as land shortage and population growth.

Asia region has been experiencing a massive scale of urban expansion since last decade. Countries including China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Lao PDR and more are mainly developing countries which had on-going urbanisation, referring to figure 2 below, we can observe that a lot of Asian states were undergoing urban spatial expansion from 2000 – 2010.

Figure 2 Annual rate of urban spatial expansion in East Asia (World Bank Group, 2015)

The study conducted by World Bank Group indicated that the population density in the urban area of East Asia was more than 1.5 times greater than the average for the world’s urban area, and it is particularly denser than Latin America, Europe and North America (2015). The region is developing rapidly, in the face of challenges including population, land contamination, land shortage, urban sprawl led environmental degradation and more, these countries are seeking a way to develop sustainably. Although sprawl did happen in a lot of cities, the study stated that the cities in East Asia was attempting to a more efficient form of settlement, where when the urban population of Asia twice the size of that of Europe, they are indeed residing in a smaller amount of urban land (World Bank Group, 2015).

As a result, ‘compact city’ which claimed to have the benefit of:

1. Reducing geographical spread and allow consumption of less land

2. The planned higher residential densities could accommodate more people on the same land area; and

3. Lower fuel consumption and lower harmful emissions

(Kumar, 2000), was being adopted by plenty of the governments in their development policies, for instance, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and South Korean are the cities/ countries which had incorporated ‘compact city’ in their development strategy.

As a result, a lot of these countries were focusing on compact development, for example, China, who is now facing challenges by cause of rapid urban growth, has started to implement compact development policies in their cities in recent years (Cheng, 2012; Yan & Wang, 2011). Notably, there is also a rise of other new urban concepts recently, such as ecological city and low carbon city, in China, which is now a hot topic among scholars and governments. With the vibrant theoretical discussion of urban form, it is not so surprising to see the emergence of discussion on combined concept such as ‘Compact Ecological City’ or ‘Low Carbon Compact City’ within the Chinese scholar community (Liu & Dou, 2014; Lu & Sun, 2013; Duan & Chen, 2013).

1.1.6 THE GROWING DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-DENSITY COMPACT CITIES Different reasons had supported the actualisation of the compact city ideal in the Asian region. Particularly in China, where there is a surging demand for urbanisation, cities were not naturally evolved and grew like that of Europe. Instead, to house the rapidly growing urban population, a lot of cities were being built from nowhere, leading to the rise of the phenomenon of ‘instant cities’ (Lau, Mahtab- uz-Zaman, & So, 2000).

“The visible change to many Chinese cities over the past two decades has been the ultra-rapid emergence of high-density, and high-rise built forms, a phenomenon that has led to the form of ‘instant cities’” (Lau, Mahtab-uz-Zaman, & So, 2000).

Instant cities refer to the development where cities were not grown out of a long process of human intervention. Instead, they refer to cities which were built rapidly under the government’s grand plan (Lau, Mahtab-uz-Zaman, & So, 2000). The instant city phenomenon was growing since the early 2000s, a lot of Chinese new cities were modelled and built in this way to house the growing population, to name a few, they are Shenzhen, Shanghai Pudong etc. This phenomenon could also be observed to take place in other rapidly growing countries, such as Dubai and Qatar in Middle Asia, and they are also following the high rise, mixed land use and compact way of development. These instant cities were not being built from a stretch, instead, in most cases, they have been following the path of successful models. As for Chinese cities, they have adopted the development strategy formulated after the successful model of compact high-density cities of the country: Hong Kong and Shanghai (Chen & de'Medici, 2010), while that of Dubai, was leaning towards the form of development of Singapore (Bagaeen, 2007). This trend of building high-density compact city created a new growth in the number of compact cities in the region, making it a remaining highly relevant issue in the area. However, to the opposite of how the Asian governments were highly supportive to the high-density compact city development and putting grand plans into practice, research on compact city set in the particular geographical region of Asia remains to be minor. According to the meta-analysis conducted by Ahlfeldt and Pietrostefani on current investigations on compact city, they have analyzed the targetted area of studies, result found that among current existing researches, over 50% are conducted in North America, followed by Europe, taking up 25% of the total, while researches done in Asia was just taking up 14.6% of the total (Ahlfeldt & Pietrostefani, 2017). The number reflects that despite the growing growth of compact city development in the Area, less attention was given to this phenomenon from the academic field. Specifically, because the mode of compact city in recent development is vastly different from Europe or North America model, problems or challenges faced by these cities on their way approaching sustainability could be different from what has been found based on experiences from Europe or North America. Therefore, I believe that this growing development of compact city in the region deserve and require better examination and analysis, particularly in the challenges that they might have while approaching sustainable development.

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT Compact city as an urban planning concept, which emphasise on building a city in higher residential density and mixed land uses to limit urban sprawl, was increasingly being associated with the idea of ‘sustainable development’. A lot emphasise on some benefits that are brought by an urban form with higher residential density, including more reliance on public transportation, and more efficient use of land resources. The ‘sustainable’ revamp of the concept of compact development had made the concept once again, becoming popular among urban developers and government officials, especially for the developing countries who are now having a rapidly growing population, and are facing challenges in housing the population. Lots of cities are thus following the urban development pathways of increasing density and compactness hoping to follow after the successful compact development of leading cities such as Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. While this trend is expected to continue, many research has been stating that the high-density urban form may lead to low liveability and affecting residents’ quality of life (Burton,1999; Burton 2000; Gordon & Richardson,1997; Breheny, 1995; Lin & Yang, 2006). On the one hand, governments believed that compact city development strategy would help provide a liveable and sustainable living environment for its residents. On the other hand, scholars have been consistently advocating the negative impact of increasing urban density on urban liveability, the two side view on liveability shows the controversial nature of the compact urban form and also demonstrate the pressing need for accurate measurement on the liveability of compact cities.

While research on liveability of compact city is highly essential, there is no particular research on such aspect. According to Ahlfeldt & Pietrostefanis’ meta-analysis of compact city research, researches in the field are mainly focused on researching particular outcomes of particular characteristics of a compact city, instead of providing an overview of the relationships of the urban form and sustainability (2017). Moreover, although the buzzword ‘liveability’ has been considered as one of the important concepts in public discourse and urban planning, alongside with ‘sustainability’, it is essential to note that the current evaluation process of ‘liveability’ is not a commonly agreed process. Different stakeholders suggest different evaluation methods to measure liveability, with different emphasis. Research on how to measure, select, combine or weighting of aspects of liveability has barely started (Gabriel & Rosenthal, 2004; Khalil, 2012 as cited in Ruth and Franklin,2014). More importantly, even though measures of liveability may change over time owing to different context, geographical and cultural influences, there are barely any discussion on how and why the measures of liveability change, and what do these changes imply (Blomquist, Berger, & Hoehn, 1988; Gyourko & Tracy, 1991; Kamp, Leidelmeijer, Marsman, & Hollander, 2003 as cited in Ruth and Franklin, 2014). Therefore, to address the problem that although different research has stated the different effect of the compact urban form on various aspects of liveability, how to define, measure liveability for a compact city remained to be an unanswered question. It is also observed that there are limited empirical studies investigate on the causal relationship between the compact urban form and urban liveability. Therefore, in this research, the local benefits and trade-offs suggested by different scholars would be identified and examined by an empirical case study of Hong Kong.

1.3 RESEARCH VALUE Therefore, this research is set to uncover the trade-offs of compact development on urban liveability as well as their relative importance from the eye of local experts and residents. First, the research would review the controversial debate on compact cities, with a focus on urban liveability. By reviewing the theoretical debates, initial hypothesis made by scholars and policymakers on how compact development may benefit or hinder urban liveability from the viewpoint of urban dwellers would be identified. Adopting the method of content analysis, the case selected – Hong Kong would be examined in detail, attempting to verify, falsify or refine these identified hypotheses. In recent years, global indexes evaluating liveability have been dominating the scene, providing a list of criteria for measuring liveability, however, there is an increasing number of scholars have recognised that ‘liveability’ should also be viewed from citizen’s perspective which these indexes failed to address. Rio, Levi and Duarte discussed that ‘liveable’ would be a concept that could be described as simple as ‘places that people like’ (del Rio, Levi, & Duarte, 2012). This research is going to analysis urban liveability from the local angle, describing an assessment from a bottom-up viewpoint, allowing those who are knowledgeable of the city to evaluate its liveability. To explore how compact city characteristics would impact liveability, a detailed case study of an exemplary compact city, Hong Kong, will be conducted. By the end of the research, the question ‘What are the benefits of high density, compact urban form and its trade-offs with regards to liveability?’ would be answered. It is hoping to fill the gap where there is insufficient empirical research on high-density compact cities’ urban liveability as well as providing further insights on how to how to measure and improve the liveability of compact cities.

1.4 OBJECTIVES AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS To make it short, the overall research aim is to advance an understanding of the local urban experience in a high-density compact city and to evaluate the benefits and trade-offs brought by this form of development. The key research question is:

Which are the local benefits and trade-offs of increasing urban densities and compactness with regards to urban liveability? 1. What are the hypothetical local benefits and trade-offs of compact city as identified by scholars?

2. Do these local benefits and trade-offs present in a real-life example as well?

3. What are the aspects that have to be worked on so as to improve the urban liveability in a compact city?

Specifically, the individual objectives of this research are to:

1. Identify the hypothetical local benefits and trade-offs in urban liveability of a compact urban form from literature 2. Investigate on the local benefits and trade-offs of increasing urban densities and compactness with regards to urban liveability empirically 3. Based on the findings, critically reflect on the compact city conceptual debate in terms of urban liveability

The first objective is necessary as the previous discussion on the relationship of compactness, increasing urban densities and urban liveability was mostly theoretical. By reviewing the theoretical debate of compact city, the hypothesis lies in the compact city theory could be identified for further examination. Objective 1 will form the core of the literature review. By identifying the different approach of addressing urban liveability, it is possible to locate this study in the pool of knowledge of urban liveability. Objective 2 and 3 would rely on the collection and analysis of empirical data. By identifying the local benefits and trade-offs in the case study, it is possible to critically reflect on the theoretical hypotheses found in the Literature Review and thus, advancing the understanding in urban liveability of compact cities.

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This Literature Review will examine the main issues surrounding the long existing debate around compact cities and their liveability. By looking into the history and progress of compact city development and diving deep into the academic discussion between compact urban form and liveability, this literature review will synthesise and condense the wide range of studies into a concise document showcasing the complicated relationship of liveability and high density compact urban form. The different approaches to evaluate liveability would also be discussed in this section to provide a solid base for formulating the analytical framework of this research, which would be introduced in the next chapter. The study within this review of literature focuses on objective 1, while objective 2 and 3 will be met through the vehicle of empirical data collection and analysis in later chapters.

1. Identify the hypothetical local benefits and trade-offs in urban liveability of a compact urban form from literature 2. Investigate on the local benefits and trade-offs of increasing urban densities and compactness with regards to urban liveability empirically 3. Based on the findings, critically reflect on the compact city conceptual debate in terms of urban liveability

By the end of this section, I will develop a critical understanding of key issues surrounding the debate between liveability and compactness. Thereby, I will establish a clear focus and justification for the following empirical research to identify the role of compact urban form in urban liveability.

2.1 REVIEWING THE URBAN FORM OF COMPACT CITY

2.1.1 COMPACT CITY URBAN FORM Compact City is more of a conceptual idea than a definite form with physical criteria. It is an idea which was proposed to go against the idea of ‘Urban Sprawl’. Different scholars have suggested different criteria to define a ‘compact form’ of urban structure, some of the criteria may even go against each other. In the following, some representative work on defining Compact City would be listed and described.

As mentioned previously, Dantzig and Saaty were being considered as the first to suggest the concept of ‘Compact City’, which is an ideological urban form poses an effective use of the vertical dimension and the time dimension of cities (1973). In their proposal, their conceptual city was composed of 8 levels, housing 250,000 people and can be expanded to a population of 2 million by adjusting the building height and diameter, containing commercial, industrial, entertainment and services centres which are reachable on foot or by an efficient mass-transit system. In this original concept, the emphasis of ‘Compact City’ was on the ‘efficiency’ of the city. By increasing the density of the city by building higher, services could be more reachable, and a mass-transit system could fulfil most of the transportation needs of the city. This idea of Dantzig and Saaty could be seen as a backbone for all the other definition coming up later in years, which are mostly a modified or expanded version of it.

Jenks, Burton and Williams have later published the book “The Compact City: A Sustainable Urban Form?” in 1996. This book was considered as one of the major work on the theory of compact city. Thomas and Cousins’s work titled “A new compact city form: concepts in practice” as an example, the concept of ‘Compact City’ was defined as a mode to develop in a way of ‘decentralised concentration’ where the city could combine the best attributes of the compact city (sufficient green space, well- connected public transportation system, socially feasible), walkable city and a good emphasis on spatial flexibility (1996).

Neuman is one of the most representative critics on the idea of ‘Compact City’. In his work “The Compact City Fallacy” dated back in 2005, he had listed out the characteristics of a compact city by reviewing different works. The characteristics are: (1) High residential and employment densities; (2) Mixture of land uses; (3) Fine grain of land uses (proximity of varied uses and small relative size of land parcels); (4) Increased social and economic interactions; (5) Contiguous development ; (6) Contained urban development, demarcated by legible limits; (7) Urban infrastructure, especially sewerage and water mains; (8) Multimodal transportation; (9) High degrees of accessibility: local/regional; (10) High degrees of street connectivity (internal/external), including sidewalks and bicycle lanes; (11) High degree of impervious surface coverage; (12) Low open-space ratio; (13) Unitary control of planning of land development, or closely coordinated control ,and (14) Sufficient government fiscal capacity to finance urban facilities and infrastructure (Neuman, 2005).

OECD’s report titled “Compact City Policies: A Comparative Assessment” which was published in 2012 is a publication that aimed at promoting the development of ‘Compact City’ further, by examining compact city policies across the OECD countries about the concept of ‘green growth’. In this report, they summed up three major characteristics that compose the concept of ‘Compact City’, including (1) Intensified and concentrated development mode; (2) Public transportation connected urban area; and (3) Local services, employment and accessibility to services (OECD, 2012).

To sum up, in terms of the physical form of compact city, scholars have defined in different ways, to sum up, compact cities shall pose the following characteristics:

- Land use planning guided by ambitions to densify urban settlements - Contained Development - Mixed land use - Provision of sufficient green area within the city - Reliance on public transport - Social fairness - Self-sufficiency of daily life

(Breheny, 1996; ECOTEC, 1993; Jenks, Burton, & Williams, 1996).

A lot of researchers emphasise the need to consider the local context of different countries (Scoffham & Vale, 1996;77 Breheny, 1996). Therefore, instead of creating the fixed density and form of a ‘compact city’, they proposed that when the city posed the above characteristics, then it could be considered as a form of ‘compact development’. As for the size of compact cities, in view of recent expansion and enlargement of cities across the globe, in recent report of OCED, it is said that in contrary to the past, where only ‘small’ cities were being considered as compact city, recently, large metropolitan areas can also be compact as long as they have the above-mentioned characteristics (2010). Therefore, we could conclude that there is indeed a lot of flexibility regarding the definition of a compact city, there is no particular fixed measurement to define a compact city, making the term flexible and versatile.

2.1.2 HIGH-DENSITY COMPACT CITY AS A COMMON FORM OF COMPACT CITY ADOPTED IN RECENT YEARS Owing to the differences in population density, development stages or the cultural differences, the outcome of compact policy could be vastly different. Burton, in her empirical study of urban compactness of towns in the UK, has developed a set of indicators to measure urban compactness. She suggested that the measurement of compactness is a combination of three areas, including density, a mix of uses and intensification. By computing indicators measuring density, a mix of uses and intensification, overall compactness was being calculated (Burton, 2002). Although the concept of a compact city was often associated with densification and high density, the density itself is not a defined value. As mentioned by Burton perceptions of density are culturally bounded. Therefore density could only be defined by relative value (2002).

As mentioned in section 1.1.6, in Asia, a lot of compact cities have appeared in the form of ‘high-density compact city’.

Yang, Liu and Tian had identified that different contextual background could lead to different results on ‘compact city’ development, in particular, in the Chinese context, compact city is appearing in a much higher density than compact cities in Europe (Yang, Liu, & Tian, 2011). They have compared and contrasted the different approaches of Chinese cities and western cities on their way on compact development. They have pointed out that, owing to the fact that cities in China, Japan, Southeast Asia are mostly facing the problem of rapid population growth but lack of urban land for development, they are adopting the thought of ‘compact city’ from the angle of intensifying and densifying the city, but less on mixed-use and its ‘compactness’. This is resulting in high-density development which the scale of densification is much larger than that of European cities where the thought ‘compact city’ was originated. They have named that compact city in European countries as ‘low-density compact city’, which is different from the high-density compact cities in the Asian context. By naming Hong Kong as one of the exemplar of a high-density compact city, which have achieved both high density and compactness, they are advocating movement to develop in a high-density compact way.

The high density compact urban form, is, therefore, sharing the characteristics of compact city urban form, but with particularly high density, using Hong Kong as an example, Hong Kong pose an average urban population density (Built-up area only) of 27, 330 person/km sq (Hong Kong Planning Department, 2016), just to provide a comparable figure, the urban population density of London is around 5,590 people/km sq according to the U.K. Government (Office for National Statistics, 2016).

However, the high density compact urban form could be a rising threat to liveability. Yang, Liu and Tian acknowledged that high-density compact development should be regulated because continuing process of intensification may lead to over-crowding, intensifying congestion problem, longer commute time, poor air quality, intensifying urban heat-island effect and psychological stress of citizens etc. (2011). When Burton suggested measuring compactness in three aspects (mixed-use, density and intensification), she did not concern much on the maximum or the optimal density of the city. Instead, she mentioned that a balanced between elements could achieve better compactness. Yang, Liu and Tian further elaborate on this issue, suggesting that the density shall have a set of regulation to prevent overcrowding and other negative impacts on the liveability of the city. However, both concluded the discussion by saying that density is a relative concept. Therefore, it is hard to have any standards for limitation. However, when the adverse effects are already being recognised and identified, it is important to address and measure them, in particular, when cities are tending to build in higher and higher densities.

In this thesis, due to limited time and resources, it is almost impossible to define and solve this problem solely. However, I would like to explore further on this issue. If it is hardly possible to objectively formulate a fixed density level for cities, what about starting from looking into the perceived urban liveability of a compact city empirically? By exploring on empirical cases, we might be able to seek the optimal density from the viewpoint of urban liveability. This research is attempting to reflect and explore further on the ‘optimal compact urban form’ from the angle of ‘balancing trade-offs and local benefits’ regarding urban liveability.

2.2 URBAN LIVEABILITY OF COMPACT CITY

2.2.1 THE EVOLVING NOTION OF URBAN LIVEABILITY 2.2.1.1 ‘Liveable City’ The idea of ‘liveable city’ emerged back in the 1950s against the background of processes of modernisation and urbanisation (Kaal, 2011). Back then, the effect of surrounding environment on residents are being recognized (Detwyler and Marcus, 1972 & Michelson, 1973), resulting in rapid growth of urban liveability research back in the 1970s to 1980s. The growing discussion in liveability was also closely related to the trend where the person-environment relationship was being growingly valued in respond to the environment centric discussion in the field of urban environment research (Pacione, 1990). Therefore, the concept of liveability reflects a human-geography approach where the social aspect of urban environment was being acknowledged. However, despite the growing usage of the term, there is no commonly agreed definition for the concept.

Scholars, governments, or others each define the term in different ways, to synthesise, the definitions could be grouped as follow:

1. A Top-down Assessment

In this category, ‘liveability’ was measured by a set of numerical/performance-based criteria. Namazi- Rad, Perez, Berryman and Lamy defined it as “the quality of life in a region based on the surrounding physical environment and different location-based social elements” (2012). Under this category, ‘liveability’ of a community or city could be assessed by evaluating the performance of the city in different factors, assuming that the good performances in the above factors would lead to a desirable outcome – a liveable and satisfactory city. This is also how the major Global Liveability indexes approach to ‘liveability’, for example, Global Liveability Ranking, which ranks 140 cities by their liveability, published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, was based on rating in 5 categories, including Stability, Healthcare, Culture & Environment, Education and Infrastructure (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2017).

2. Residents’ experience The other category to define ‘liveability’ was from the citizen perspective, for example, Southworth defines it as the residents’ sense of well-being, “how well the city works for us, as well as how comfortable and enjoyable our neighbourhood and city are” (2003). This definition emphasises the experiences of people who are living in the community. “The idea of a liveable city is to bring the community together for healthy living, enhance their interaction among themselves and surrounding environment and sustainably promote their productivity and wellbeing” (Maheshwari, Singh, & Thoradeniya, 2016). The emphasis on community indicates a very different approach to measure liveability, where this emphasises on the subjective experience of the city.

2.2.1.2 The problem of global rankings In the context of recent discussions of ‘liveability’, it is largely dominated by studies that based on a top-down, performance-based assessment of the physical attributes of the city. In particular, global indexes were one of the major actors in evaluating the liveability of global cities. To name a few, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Ranking; Monocle ‘The Most Liveable Cities Index’ and Mercer’s Quality of Living Ranking are the few making most headlines in news coverage. However, this type of global cities rankings had been criticised by scholars for its biased in measurement and targeted group. Although a lot of cities’ governments and media take the results of the rankings as an objective rating of the living quality of the city, the indexes results may not be designed for that purpose.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) describe their research purpose as ‘from benchmarking perceptions of development levels to assigning a hardship allowance as part of the expatriate relocation packages’ (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2017). They have also given a suggested companies allocation allowances alongside the liveability ranking report, indicating that the targeted audience for this report shall not be the general public, rather, it is a report for businesses, companies and expatriate to consider where to live. The EIU one is not the only report that serves this purpose, Verhoeven and Morris have noticed that it is similar case for the Mercer Consulting and also the Monocle magazine that these ranking are aimed at international companies seeking to provide their employees with comparative information about the cost of living (Verhoeven & Morris, 2012). From the aspect of local governments, the publication and promotion of these rankings is a way to attract global talents and to maintain their global competitiveness (Anttiroiko, 2015; Tan, Woo, Tan, Low, & Aw, 2012). Therefore, the one critical weakness of these indexes was being ignored. Two liveability indices review reports have both pointed out this problem that these study ‘take very little to no account of the perceptions of day-to-day residents about city life with subjective assessments undertaken by representatives and data collectors’ (Manolakis & Kennedy, 2012; Woolcock, 2009). Both authors have agreed that the perceptions of residents are highly essential in reflecting the social and cultural aspect of liveability in the city assessments. Therefore, the result of these indexes could be hardly reflecting the true urban experiences of residents. Eventually, it could result in a significant difference between the perceived liveability of residents and the ranking of 'liveable' cities on the global indexes. Therefore, to address this issue, there are increasing research that focuses on the perceived liveability of residents, which would be discussed further in the following.

2.2.1.3 Adding the subjective view on liveability evaluation In previous section 2.2.1.1, we have described the two school of definitions of liveability, including the ones based on the top-down, performance-based assessment of the physical attributes of a city and the ones based on residents’ experience. The two is different from each other regarding how they assess the environment and its relation to quality of life. As for the top-down assessment group of research, they determine liveability by evaluating the different aspect of the living environment by a series of criteria, which they believed to have a significant impact on the quality of life of people. However, this approach was being criticised for having no account of residents about their urban experience while evaluating liveability of the place, which also resulted in lack of measurement in social and cultural aspect (Holloway & Wajzer, 2008).

In response to the criticism, there is notably increasing research that is advancing in measuring liveability from the subjective viewpoint. As mentioned above, liveability is a concept that emphasizes the environment-human relation, defined as “the quality of life in a region based on the surrounding physical environment and different location-based social elements” (Namazi-Rad, Perez, Berryman, & Lamy, 2012), emphasising on how the relationship between quality of life of people and the physical environment. This relationship between liveability and the physical environment could be divided into two types, as identified by McCrea and Walters, which includes ‘liveability derived from an urban environment’ and ‘liveability experienced in the context of an urban environment’ (McCrea & Walters, 2012). When urban planning studies shared a common focus on studying liveability as ‘an urban condition derived from interactions with the environment’ (Satu & Chiu, 2017), this study would also follow suit and focus on the aspect of liveability which is being derived from the urban environment.

Therefore, urban liveability in this paper is defined as the positive and negative impacts of urban compactness and high density on residents’ lives as perceived by residents themselves (adopted from McCrea & Walters, 2012). This approach emphasises on the subjective nature of urban experience and evaluation.

As discussed previously, the urban form of a compact city was being associated with sustainability and had become one of the primary reason for the governments to continue promoting the compact type of development. However, the claims that compact city could provide a more liveable urban life is yet to be proved. While compact city had been evolving and further developed in the Asian region, and was being considered as one of the sustainable way to develop, its shortcoming in liveability which had been pointed out by scholars was not receiving much attention. In the following sections, the hypotheses posed by scholars and policymakers on theoretical/empirical findings on the benefits and trade-offs of increasing urban densities and compactness with regards to local urban liveability would be reviewed and examined. Meanwhile, the benefits which were dedicated to the city as a whole, such as energy efficiency, which could have subtle and limited impact on urban liveability as perceived by local residents would not be the major focus of this section.

2.2.2 HYPOTHESES & OBSERVATION: THE LOCAL BENEFITS Compact development was claimed to enhance urban liveability in many ways, to list a few, there are: introducing more green area inside cities and preserving green fields in rural areas (Burton, 2002; Gordon and Richardson, 1997), decreasing air pollution owing to the reduced car dependency (Borrego, et al., 2006) and enhancing social equity by providing better access to facilities and transportation for all (Jenks et al, 1996). However, some of these claims were not being well-proven (Kenworthy, 1992). Plenty of researchers also suggested that it is unclear whether these benefits could out weight the adverse effects on residents’ quality of life (Jenks et al. ,1996; Williams et al., 2000; McLaren, 1992), while some of the externalities of the urban form on social were not being recognized and discussed. In the following, I would first elaborate on the potential local benefits of compact development as suggested by compact city theorists. Trade-offs which were identified by scholars in recent years would be examined following that.

1. Sufficient and accessible protected green spaces for the public

One primary principle of the compact city theory was to contain the area of urban development, by doing so, urban sprawl could be prevented and thus preserve the nature surrounding the urban area. In this principle, not only does the environment was being protected, the green spaces are noted to be important in the social viewpoint. The green was also being viewed as the ‘back garden’ of the city, allowing urban dwellers to have access to nature (Burton, 2002; Gordon and Richardson, 1997).

2. Affordable, Less Polluting Public Transportation

Compact city was a solution that runs counter to the negative impact as associated with the rise in car ownership and use. Hillman suggested that there are several adverse impacts in people’s quality of life as associated with the growing reliance on private cars. These impacts include (1) social polarization and equity concern as the majority of the population could not afford a car; (2) Congestion spreading to more roads; (3) Noise and Air pollution of cars would induce adverse impact on residents’ health; (4) Too many cars may discourage street life and other means of transportation such as cycling or walking (Hillman, 1996).

In the ideal of compact city, it is to develop in a compact form, where limited the spread, allowing more concentrated distribution of residential housing, therefore, the growing population would be able to support convenient and affordable collective form of transportation: public transportation. It is suggested that collective form of transportation could bring advantages such as – more efficient use of space; 2. Produce a smaller amount of solid waste 3. safer and fewer social cost; 4. Less noise and air pollution because of the use of electricity instead of fossil fuels (Vlegual, 1995 as cited in (Nijkamp & Rienstra, 1996). Viewing from the social viewpoint, the most significant local benefit of the collective form of transportation was to provide an affordable and less polluting mode of transport for all residents.

3. High accessibility to infrastructures and local services (Sufficiency, easy access)

The relatively higher density and mixed land use characteristics of compact development allow more efficient public service delivery as well as better access to local services, infrastructure and jobs (OECD, 2012). From the local angle, residents could enjoy more accessible and efficient public services, while they could have equal access to social infrastructures such as hospitals, schools, community centres etc. and also to local shops for daily supply despite their class and earnings. From this aspect, the urban liveability could be enhanced by the high accessibility to infrastructures and local services.

To sum up, the three hypotheses found in this section are:

H1: Urban liveability can benefit through

I. Sufficient and accessible protected green spaces for the public

II. Affordable and less polluting public transportation

III. High accessibility to infrastructures and local services

2.2.3 HYPOTHESES& OBSERVATION: THE TRADE-OFFS Different works in the field have suggested the opposite to the above benefits suggested. In the following, these major works would be reviewed.

Burton, in her work, “The Compact City: Just or Just Compact?” have noted that although compact city was being claimed to be promoting social equity, there are several problems existed which might hinder the quality of life in the city. Burton argued that there were insufficient researches that addressed social issues, in particular on how differential effects happened across different social groups or the disadvantaged. By taking a comparative investigation on social equity effects to the compactness of 25 towns or cities in the U.K., she found out that although compact city ideal was claimed to provide sufficient green space inside the urban area, thus improving the living environment of the city, this is untrue in her case study. She discovered that the residents are likely to live further away from the nearest area of green space. Moreover, compactness of living environment is hindering liveability in other aspects including less domestic living space; lack of affordable housing; increased crime levels and lower levels of walking and cycling (Burton, 2000). Although by correlating data of towns and cities, she could observe the validity of some claims on how compact city could be a sustainable urban form, Burton could not answer what are the differential effects happened across different social groups and how the disadvantaged reacted to the changing living environment. Owing to methodological limitations, she could only have formulated a series of assumptions regarding how the lower social class could be affected. For instance, “The lower average amount of living space available to low-income groups emerged as perhaps the single most direct effect of compactness on social equity (Burton,2000, pp1983).” However, these assumptions are remained unproved within this piece of research.

To address the same problem, which is to prove that the externalities of the denser urban form might override its benefits regarding liveability, Howley had adopted a different approach to see how people vote by their feet. The research was on the residential preferences of 270 citizens in Dublin, Ireland who had re-accommodate in higher density apartment buildings. Out of all interviewees, more around 80% of citizen expressed their likeliness on moving residence in next five years, and around 75% of the respondents would like to move from apartment to terraced, detached or semi-detached housing, showing a tendency of preferring to live in lower density areas. The four main limitations of living in a compact environment chosen by interviewees were: the high cost of living, lack of space, traffic congestion and noise pollution (Howley, 2009). In this research, Howley’s approach has addressed the idea that ‘people would choose the most liveable place to live with their own feet’ (Crookston, Clarke, & Averley, 1996; Ruth & Franklin, 2014). However, instead of building a regression model to link up the result of limitations and respondents’ choice to relocate, Howley had built a model to identify what variables (such as age, household size etc.) would be significant in predicting respondents’ future mobility patterns instead. Leading to a less in-depth discussion on the possible relationship between environmental factors and peoples’ choice of relocation.

While arguments for sustainability encourage compact city development, stating that a denser environment could improve energy efficiency and reduce vehicle emissions. Scholars suggest that from the social angle, home satisfaction, personal security, social interaction and feelings of community are being better evaluated in medium to low-density living environments (Bramley et al., 2009 as cited in Thomas et al., 2010). This finding echoes the findings of Howley. In a recent meta-analysis of Ahlfeldt & Pietrostefani, they have developed the correlation analysis. Further, they have analysed existing empirical research (N=321) results to find out the correlation between 3 compact city characteristics (Economic density, Morphological density and Mixed land use) and different outcomes (2017).

Figure 3 Mean Qualitative Results Scores by Outcome - Compact City Characteristics (Ahlfeldt & Pietrostefani, 2017)

From the above table, we could observe that a lot of positive outcomes are found associated to compact city development, in particular, the most significant one would be productivity, followed by public services delivery efficiency and services access. In the opposite, there are also several negatively correlated ones: Open space preservation, pollution reduction, health and well-being. Considering the original aim of building a compact city is to combat pollution, protect green spaces inside the city and prevent urban sprawling, the liveability of a compact city became disputable when open space preservation, pollution reduction, health and wellbeing of residents are found to be negatively correlated to compact development. This study is highly significant, as it has consolidated and highlighted the growing concerns on compact development. In the early stage of compact city argument, debates were largely limited to the theoretical layer and could hardly develop further owing to limited cases available. With the growing database of empirical studies, impact of the urban form was being highlighted in this meta-analysis.

To sum up, the hypotheses found in this section are:

H2 Urban liveability can decrease due to

I. Housing concerns, including lack of living space and lack of affordable housing

II. Failure in pollution reduction and intensified impact of noise pollution

III. In-city insufficient green or open space IV. High-density induced health and well-being impact of residents

2.2.4 BOTTOM-UP APPROACH IN EVALUATING URBAN LIVEABILITY: EMPIRICAL RESEARCH IN FIELD Although plenty of research has suggested the different impacts of the compact urban environment, the relation of these impact and the residents’ quality of life was not made explicit quite often. To list a few, a high-density environment has long been suggested to have negative impacts on urban liveability. In particular, regarding pollution, urban climate effects, over-crowding, worsening community relationship, and unaffordable housing etc. However, most of these research focus on one specific impact and diving into one particular issue, instead of providing an overview of how these effects affect the daily life of residents. ‘How do residents’ perceived these physical environments and the impact they brought by?’ remain to be the central question.

There is a small, but growing body research on subjective liveability and density. As a new and rising area of study, there is not much research that conducts an evaluation of liveability concerning the increasing density from the neighbourhood perspective.

Walton, Murray and Thomas have started to approach this topic by introducing two survey-based scales in measuring perceived quality of neighbourhood to the New Zealand context to identify how population density could be correlated to the perceived quality of neighbourhood (Walton, Murray, & Thomas, 2008). By analysing results from 369 respondents, high density was found to be performing significantly better in external accessibility and transport services. However, in both evaluation scales, it is found that perceived liveability would not be significantly affected by the population densities in different surveyed areas. They concluded that people trade-off elements of their environment against each other for their overall neighbourhood satisfaction, for example, people would choose to move to a high dense neighbourhood for better transportation.

Research conducted by Haarhoff and others recently to evaluate residents’ perceived liveability in higher density development in Auckland came to conclude with findings in line with that of Walton, Murray and Thomas. By interviewing 84 residents in three chosen cases with ‘higher density’, they concluded that higher density development was achieving higher liveability as residents evaluated those as having better facilities, public transportation and better schools (Haarhoff, Beattie, & Dupuis, 2016). And residents were making ‘strategic trade-off’ between essential factors which they value, therefore, they came up with the conclusion that high-density housing may have a positive impact on perceived liveability.

The above research conducted by Walton et al. and Haarhoff et al. both indicate similar findings where residents evaluate liveability of high-density environment positively, and they emphasise on the ‘trade- off’ made by residents regarding their choice of where to live. However, there is two methodological concern in these research. In the research conducted by Harrhoff and others, they have chosen three high-density housing development site to do the survey. It is reported that most of the respondents had previously lived in detached housing at lower densities and were voluntarily moved into the newly developed estates mostly because of expected better facilities, such proximity to schools, shopping or public transportation. As the majority of the respondents are voluntarily moved into the high-density housing, it is highly possible that they have positive impression on the high-density environment than those who did not moved to higher density household. Therefore, the assessment of liveability of high- density housing estate could be tilted to a positive outcome.

Besides, both research may suffer from the threat of respondents’ defensive reaction to their decision. Cognitive dissonance theory has suggested that people, after making an important decision, if the outcome result is not as what they are expecting, to reduce the discomfort caused by the two opposing views, people may change the way they feel or perceive about certain things (Festinger, 1962). This same attitude may result when residents are being asked about their current living condition directly. In both pieces of research, the respondents are being interviewed on their opinion on their current household living conditions directly. As a result, under the probable effect of defensive reaction, the research outcome could be biased. In particular, the conclusion that residents’ may make ‘strategic trade-off’ between factors could be the result of the illusion of residents who were trying to justify their decision-making process and balancing the decision led outcome psychologically. In particular, in the research conducted by Haarhoff and others, they have highlighted that although most of the residents reported a positive evaluation of higher density living environment when asking about their future housing preference, majority selected the lower density, detached house type. This finding indicates a possible problem in the assessment process.

Given this possible effect of cognitive dissonance, Walton and others decided to investigate on the issue of ‘trade-off’ further, by conducting an experimentally manipulated neighbourhood density and home location study in correlation to perceived liveability (Thomas, Walton, & Lamb, 2011). By setting up the scene with hypothetical scenarios, they attempted to minimise the impact of defensive reaction. They provided two hypothetical scenarios to 106 households, trying to identify what impact would the changes in home size and density on their perceived liveability of the household. The results show that people optimise their location based on factors with high perceived importance, including accessibility and transportation distances. However, this research which attempted to measure perceived liveability ignored a lot of possible impact of high-density housing, such as overcrowding, congestion, pollution, or privacy problem, which could be hardly evaluated solely by imagination or prediction. The lacking of experience measurement is the major weakness in this research.

McCrea and Walters have approached the same research problem from a different approach. In order to assess the impact of increasing urban density, they have interviewed approximately 70 residents from two housing suburbs, namely the West End and Wynnum, which were both undergoing densification and consolidation process. The main difference of this research is that they focused on those who experienced the changes of densification involuntarily, the residents from the neighbourhood were experiencing the consolidation due to the governmental decision. This approach has recorded very different results than the above pieces of research. Most of the residents expressed a negative view towards consolidation, in particular, they pointed out that traffic congestion, housing affordability and infrastructure are of high concern. One important finding of the research is that a lot of respondents, despite their negative view towards the consolidation, they have chosen to stay and only a few have considered leaving. McCrea and Walters have pointed out that many residents were emotionally attached to the places they lived even if the perceived liveability was affected by other factors. They pointed out that it is essential for planners to understand local notions of liveability because residents often stay even if perceived liveability drop (McCrea & Walters, 2012). This work of research focused on the impact of density increase to the life of original residents, and highlighted the fact that even consolidation is bringing negative impact to the daily life of people, they may not just make another judgement on ‘strategic trade-off’ and to move to elsewhere. The statement of ‘strategic trade-off’ relies on the fact where people have sufficient power and freedom to choose freely where to live. In that case, they could compare different locations and choose the best which suits their needs. However, McCrea and Walters pointed out that emotional attachment could be a big factor influencing the outcome of moving or not. This is a valuable finding as it pointed out that there are more contributing to liveability and residential decision than a simple ‘trade-off’ process. This is especially important to this research in the context of Asia, as a lot of countries are facing land shortage problem or poverty problem, freedom to choose where to live could be hindered or largely affected by economic concerns.

From the above analysis, it could be observed that plenty of research outcome have emphasized on the ‘strategic trade-off’ effect in housing condition evaluation, which is referring to the way residents have made their own decision on housing after weighting different local benefits as well as trade-offs of that location. Is this claim valid in different contexts as well?

To study further about this, this logic of ‘strategic trade-off’ would be posed as a hypothesis as below:

H3 The trade-offs caused by compactness and increasing density could be balanced by the benefits brought by the compact urban form, reaching a ‘liveable’ condition.

2.3 CONCLUSION

2.3.1 CLAIMS IDENTIFIED In the above literature review, knowledge claims on liveability issue of compact and high density urban form were identified from scholars and researchers’ empirical and analytical works.

Claims Nature of Scholars, Researchers Impact (+/-)

Introducing more green area inside cities + Burton, 2002; Gordon and Richardson, 1997

Providing better access to facilities + Jenks et al, 1996; Jenks et al, 2000; Ahlfeldt & Pietrostefani,2017; Providing better transportation for all + Walton, Murray, & Thomas, 2008; Haarhoff, Beattie, & Dupuis, 2016

Decreasing air pollution owing to reduced car + Borrego, et al., 2006 dependency

Residents are likely to living further away from the - Burton, 2000 nearest area of green space Less domestic living space - Burton,2000; Howley,2009

Lack of affordable housing - Burton,2000; McCrea & Walters, 2012

Increased Crime Level - Burton,2000

Higher cost of living Burton,2000

Prominent traffic congestion - Howley,2009; McCrea & Walters, 2012

Prominent noise pollution - Howley, 2009

Health Impact - Ahlfeldt & Pietrostefani,2017

Well-being is negatively affected - Ahlfeldt & Pietrostefani,2017

Table 1List of identified claims

To sum up, the above-reviewed pieces of work do not share the same methodology, each of the researchers approaches the problem from different approaches and focus. However, by reviewing the literature above, a pattern of analysis could be identified. Therefore, in the following, these ways to analyse the impact of high-density and compact urban form on liveability (subjective, urban experiences) would be presented in form of a model, showcasing in general how researchers approach the problem.

It is noted that the studies have pointed on how high-density or compact urban form could enhance or hinder the people living experiences (liveability) in several ways, including Transportation, Infrastructure and Facilities, Urban Environment, Housing, Safety and Impact on Citizen. By analysing the above findings, a model had been built to summarise the found relationships between urban form and liveability.

Figure 4 Model for analysing impacts of high density compact urban form on liveability

This model indicates the findings of previous scholars on compact or high-density urban form. They have identified that high density or compact urban form could impact on the liveability of the neighbourhood/ city in the above-listed areas. The above draft model was drafted to guide the case study following. By analysing findings of the case study, it is hoping to provide further insights to this draft model on how to examine impacts of high density compact urban form on liveability.

2.4 THE RESEARCH GAP This literature review section has reviewed works ranging from the origin of the compact city concept to the recent debate of liveability issue of high-density compact cities. The newly evolved form of compact city, i.e. the high-density compact city, is increasingly popular in the Asian region. However, academic discussion on liveability of this form of development remains to be limited. Although plenty of global indexes have pointed out that high-density compact city is highly liveable, for example, Economist Intelligence Unit Special Report “Best cities ranking and report” have ranked Hong Kong the first in its Spatial Adjusted Liveability Index (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2012). However, these indexes, as suggested by scholars such as Manolakis & Kennedy in 2012 or Woolcock in 2009, took very little or even no account of the perceptions of residents’ subjective opinions. Although different pieces of literature have already discussed the possible negative impacts of high density and compact form of development, there are not many studies done on identifying how these impacts are affecting the urban experiences of local residents. As urban experience is inherently subjective, in this research, I would like to emphasise on the necessity to measure urban liveability from a subjective viewpoint, and this goes in line with the pieces of research conducted by Scholars including Walton, Thomas, McCrea and more.

Because subjective urban experience could be eminently context dependent, research conducted by Walton or McCrea, which context was set in New Zealand or Australia, could have a significant difference from the high-density development happening in Asia. Therefore, research of subjective liveability in the context of Asian high-density compact development is in pressing need to be conducted. However, there is yet to have such emphasis in the urban academia. Therefore, this research is going to examine the exemplar of the high-density compact city, Hong Kong, which is also having immense influence regarding the urban form in the Asian region, to identify how the urban form might have impact on liveability. Instead of judging whether the urban form is playing big in influencing liveability, this research would focus on looking into this extreme case of urban density and compactness, by examining the case from different perspective, it is hoped to understand the threats or opportunities poses by the high-density urban form better, as well as to identify what will be at relevant higher importance from local viewpoint. By identifying the threats and opportunities in the case study, we would be able to compare to the previous claims suggested by other scholars, as well as providing more insights to the knowledge pool by exploring the relevant importance of the threats and opportunities identified.

Last but not least, this research aims to identify whether a high-density urban form is liveable from the perspective of those who live or concern about it. By generating more information on local urban experience in a high-density compact city, this study is expecting to provide more insights on how to improve liveability in high density and compact urban environment, particularly in Asian context.

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

The research study has a number of inter-related objectives set within the context of liveability of high- density compact city:

1. Identify the hypothetical local benefits and trade-offs in urban liveability of a compact urban form from literature 2. Investigate on the local benefits and trade-offs of increasing urban densities and compactness with regards to urban liveability empirically 3. Based on the findings, critically reflect on the compact city conceptual debate in terms of urban liveability

In the previous chapter, we have attempted to answer to the first research objective by analysing the findings of different scholars and urbanists on liveability concerns associated with the high density compact urban form. Although many have pointed out that liveability is a concern in a compact urban environment, empirical research mostly focused on investigating one specific impact of compact city without providing an overview of the liveability issue persisting in a high-density environment (Ahlfeldt & Pietrostefani, 2017). While living experiences are highly subjective, liveability research was mainly conducted by international indexes, which was being criticised for lack of consideration on subjective evaluation of environment. To fill the gap in existing research where there is lack of subjective approach to measuring liveability, as well as the need to provide a more integrated evaluation of the high-density compact environment, this research is going to take one step further to elaborate on the concept of ‘liveable environment’ from a subjective, local viewpoint. It is also to explore and illustrate the urban liveability of a high-density compact city from both experts and residents’ angles. This section – research methodology, will provide the details of the research strategy adopted to address the issues identified above. In addition, the reader will be explained with the potential limitations and problems with the chosen research strategy and its implementation.

3.1 RESEARCH PARADIGM Research paradigm could be defined as “a loose collection of logically related assumptions, concepts, or propositions that orient thinking and research” (Bogdan & Biklen 1998 as cited in Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006). It explains the philosophical intent of the research, and identify the ‘knowledge’ that the research intended to obtain. In the following, this paradigm would be further elaborated.

In this research, the paradigm ‘constructivism’ would be adopted. Constructivism refers to the approach which has the intention to understand “the world of human experience” (Cohen & Manion 1994 as cited in Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006). Researchers under this paradigm would like to explore how individual or society mentally constructs the world of experience. There are several philosophical assumptions being made under this paradigm, including:

1. Participants and research develop multiple realities through interaction

2. Co-creation of reality between participants and researcher

3. Beliefs and values are socially constructed (Creswell & Poth, 2017).

In this research, the ultimate goal was to explore the meaning of ‘liveable’ from the local resident viewpoint and to identify the benefits and barriers brought by a high density compact urban form on urban liveability from a subjective angle. It is aimed to explore the ‘reality’ constructed by people who are living in this environment. As mentioned in the previous section, a top-down viewpoint of ‘liveability’ has been pointed out as defected owing to the lack of concern on subjective evaluation of the environment, and this is unavoidable because ‘liveable’ is an inherently subjective and human-based concept. Human settlements are never an inevitable result of nature. Instead, it is constructed by human in both physical and social sense. Therefore, to identify this evaluation of environment of people, it is essential to take people opinion into account. The interpretative perspective of ‘constructivism’ fits in with this view of the researcher to address subjective living experiences and evaluation of urban environment from the residents’ angle.

3.2 RESEARCH STRATEGY

3.3.1 HYPOTHESIS-TESTING CASE STUDY In order to meet research objective 2 and 3,

2) Investigate on the local benefits and trade-offs of increasing urban densities and compactness with regards to urban liveability empirically 3) Based on the findings, critically reflect on the compact city conceptual debate in terms of urban liveability

empirical data will be collected and analysed. The empirical research is interested in an in-depth study within a ‘high-density compact’ urban environment, of some inter-related objectives: to investigate on the local benefits and trade-offs of increasing urban densities and compactness from the local viewpoint, including the experts and residents and in what way do local benefits and trade-offs could reach a balance from their viewpoint at the moment.

The primary focus, in terms of stakeholders, will be the experts who are highly knowledgeable in the compact development of Hong Kong. Their knowledge in specific professional fields facilitates critical evaluation on urban liveability of the case. Secondarily, the research would provide a community-based point of view as well by conducting interview with residents’ representatives in a specific community, which would be described in details in the next section.

A case study approach was deemed to be best suited to facilitate this in-depth study of a contemporary issue, which aim at obtaining different stakeholders’ perspectives to gain a richer understanding of the urban living experience in a complex setting, extremely high density compact urban form.

As mentioned in section 3.1, in this research ‘constructivism’ would be adopted and the goal is to explore the notion of ‘liveable urban environment’ from a local viewpoint. Taking the stake as the observer and to interpret the socially constructed reality of the living environment, this research would fall into the category of ‘qualitative research’. “Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world” as defined by Denzin and Lincoln; qualitative research involves an interpretative approach to the world, where researchers have to make sense of or interpret the meaning people bring to certain phenomena (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). Qualitative research brings in interpretative approach to the world, which fits in with the view of the researcher to address subjective living experiences and evaluation of urban environment from the bottom-up angle. While there is number of approaches that are usually adopted by a qualitative researcher, such as Narrative Research, Phenomenology, Grounded Theory, Ethnography and case study (Creswell & Poth, 2017), a case study was deemed to be the best-suited method for this study.

Case study refers to “a qualitative approach in which the investigator explores a real-life, contemporary bounded system (a case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over time, through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information” (Creswell & Poth, 2017), it is a method to carry out empirical inquiry within bounded area in a particular context. Case study approach goes in line with the researcher’s motive to investigate deeply into the subjective evaluation of the liveability in high-density compact environment. Yin, one of the leading scholar in case study methodology defines case study as an empirical inquiry which “Investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.” (Yin, 2003). The study of a liveable environment is highly subject to contextual influence, for example, the case study of Hong Kong would highly subject to the influence of Chinese housing tradition and culture. Therefore the use of case study strategy is to include contextual factors in the study instead of controlling them as in an experimental study. By doing so, contextual factors could be included in the analysis and provide richer information for explaining the studied phenomenon. This research is concerned with an in-depth study of the living experience and evaluation of high-density living in an Asian context – where cities mostly faced land shortage as well as rapid population growth. The boundaries between high-density living experience and geographical context could hardly be examined separately. For example, scholars have pointed out that Chinese might have higher acceptability towards high-density living environment owing to the Chinese housing traditions (Yang, Liu, & Tian, 2011). Therefore, a case study is deemed to be an appropriate method for this research.

This research is also interested in comparing what was discovered in the literature review with the results of a case study. As discovered in previous section, when studying high-density living environment and its impact on liveability, researchers have previously found that there are several positive and negative impacts on urban liveability. By studying the case in detail, the outcome findings could be compared with the previous findings and thus provide an improved understanding of how high-density compact environment would lead to different local benefits and trade-offs in urban liveability. More importantly, by conducting an in-depth case-study, the issue of how local is valuing these ‘benefits’ and ‘trade-offs’ could be addressed, allowing a better understanding on the ‘balanced’ of the two. Have Hong Kong achieved a good balance between the two? Can trade-offs always be balanced out the increasing benefits? These are some of the questions to be addressed in the case study.

To compare what was discovered in the literature review with the results of a case study, the approach ‘Hypothesis testing case study’ has been chosen. There are in total three hypotheses were identified through the progress of reviewing theoretical and empirical research results by different scholars back in Section 2.3,

H1: Urban liveability can benefit through

I. Sufficient and accessible protected green spaces for the public II. Affordable and less polluting public transportation III. High accessibility to infrastructures and local services

H2 Urban liveability can decrease due to

I. Housing concerns, including lack of living space and lack of affordable housing II. Failure in pollution reduction and intensified impact of noise pollution III. In-city insufficient green or open space IV. High-density induced health and well-being impact of residents

H3 The tradeoffs caused by compactness and increasing density could be balanced by the benefits brought by the compact urban form, reaching a ‘liveable’ condition.

These hypotheses would be verified, falsified or refined in the course of empirical case study of Hong Kong. In the following, details of the case would be explained and justified.

3.3.2 SITE SELECTION In this research, the liveability issue of the urban form, high density compact urban form, is the major research target. As mentioned in previous sections, this emerging urban form could be identified as a developing variation of the compact city urban development, which is found to share major characteristics with compact cities, including:

- Densified land use planning

- Contained Development

- Mixed land use

- Providing sufficient green area in-city

- Public transport reliance

- Social fairness

- Self-sufficiency of daily life

(Breheny, 1996; ECOTEC, 1993; Jenks, Burton, & Williams, 1996), but poses much higher density. As the East Asian region is now undergoing rapid urbanisation, as well as development, a lot of these countries are facing land and environmental challenges. Compact development with higher density is deemed to be a possible solution to the challenges they are facing, which could protect the environment by limiting the urban sprawl, but at the same time ensure sufficient supply of urban housing units to house the growing urban population. In particular, countries, such as China, India and more, are experiencing this growth of ‘high-density compact cities’.

This research aims to investigate an exemplary, well-developed city, which poses high density and the characteristics mentioned above of a compact city, and thus could provide empirical evidence to the current knowledge pool of compact city and its liveability. The central ambition of the research is to identify and examine the benefits and concerns brought by the ‘compact city’ urban form on liveability and to seek for different stakeholders’ perspectives, from experts in urban development and liveability issue to local residents who had the most experience in this environment.

As described in section 2.1.2, density is a relative concept. Therefore, under different contexts, density could be defined differently. Yang, Liu, & Tian had mentioned in their work that the high-density development that is currently experiencing in the East-Asian or Southeast Asian region is notably having a much higher density than in western context (2011). Therefore, in the process of choosing a site for carrying out the research, it is necessary to keep the relative density concept in mind. Some of the examples which could fall into the category of high-density urban form would be Asian metropolitans, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong are some well-established cities with remarkably high density as well as compact urban form, which emphasis on public transportation-centric development.

Why Hong Kong?

Hong Kong is selected as an ‘extreme and influential case’ of a compact city for this case study.

Hong Kong, has been recognized by many scholars, particularly in China, as an exemplary compact city, as well as high density living (Yang, Liu, & Tian, 2011; Zhang, 2000; Mahtab-uz-Zaman, Lau, & So, 2000; Loo, Chen, & Chan, 2010; Fei & Wang, 2004), creating a strong impact on recent Chinese urban development (Yuen, 2011). Comparing to other cities poses the same urban form, Hong Kong had one of the longest history of high density compact development, where this form of living had been experiencing by her residents since 1960s. In particular, owing to the substantial impact of British architecture and planning traditions, Hong Kong’s compact development is seen to have a close relation to the contained development trend in the UK and Europe back in the 1950s. Owing to the long development history and highly recognised status as a well-perform high-density compact city, Hong Kong is selected as the site for this research study.

Kwun Tong: A site which specifically chosen for collecting subjective and experience-based evaluation of the high density compact living environment

Although Hong Kong is the case to provide an overview study of the research, to collect more information on the local and experience-based evaluation of the high-density compact living environment, it is necessary to approach from a more specific residential area.

When researching by collecting subjective viewpoint on peoples' living environment, some concerns have been identified in previous literature review section, and they are summarized in the following:

It is expected to experience a defensive reaction from people who are voluntary and newly moved into the high-density environment

Therefore, it is necessary to also focus on those who originally lived in the neighbourhood but not only the newly moved, as they might not be expecting the environmental changes It is also important to consider those who have no power to move or choose where to move, i.e. those who could not make the strategic trade-off

Hong Kong, the metropolitan, is constituted with 18 districts geographically. Kwun Tong is one of the 18 districts, which is posing the highest residential density among all. Kwun Tong is selected due to several reasons. First, it poses the highest residential density and is now undergoing urban regeneration which leads to further consolidation in the residential area. The project is creating growing concerns on the liveability of the districts as observed from media and reports. As reviewed in the previous literature review section, when people voluntarily moved into expected high-density area, if one asks about their living experience in the area, people might react defensively to their decision-making process, seeing the question as an underlying threat to their housing decision. Choosing an environment which is continuously changing and consolidating, while at the same time focus on those who originally lived in the neighbourhood is expected to prevent the defensive reaction to the questions. In this case, Kwun Tong would be a very suitable case for carrying out the research.

Besides, another concern raised from the literature review is that ‘strategic trade-off’ has been noted as the main conclusion drawn to explain the positive attitude on the high-density compact urban environment (Haarhoff, Beattie, & Dupuis, 2016; Walton, Murray, & Thomas, 2008). Indicating that people would have conducted compare and valuation between different factors of the environment, only after trading-off between different factors they would have chosen to move into the research site. Therefore, most of the responses are found to be positive and having a relatively high acceptance to the high-density environment. However, one thing to note is that there are a lot of households who lack the resources and capability to choose where to live, for instance, in Hong Kong, around 30% of total population are living in public rental housing. Public rental housing is the housing scheme in Hong Kong to provide affordable housing to lower income group, as the demand for public housing is continuously growing, a lot of people are being allocated into these housing sites which could be found all over Hong Kong, and they have bare power to choose where to settle. The opinion of this group of people shall also be examined and valued. Therefore, Kwun Tong which consists of good variety in housing would be an interesting case for study as well.

3.4 DATA COLLECTION METHODS AND SAMPLING

3.4.1 INTERVIEW Sample Selection To develop an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon, the sampling strategy adopted in this research would be purposeful sampling. A lot of social science research approach the research problem with a positivist angle and emphasise the necessity to conduct scientific sampling methods, such as random sampling and sufficient sample size. However, in this research, because a subjective evaluation of urban liveability of extreme density and the compact city remained to be a new field of study. As an exploratory study, the main consideration is not to generate a representative sample nor to formulate a new theory in the field, but to gain information from people who are knowledgeable in this issue.

Purposive sampling is referring to the sampling method where samples are selected purposefully to yield cases that are “information rich” (Patton, 2015), which is also called judgement sampling. In this sampling strategy, the researcher decides the purpose he or she want informants or communities to serve. “Information-rich cases refer to those from which one can learn a great deal about issues of central importance to the purpose of the inquiry” (Patton, 2015, p. 2). In this research, the sampling strategy would be perspective focus method, where experts with their expertise in different areas of Hong Kong would be selected for interviews. As mentioned above, to study the liveability of Hong Kong, the two geographical focuses would be 1. Hong Kong as a high-density compact city and 2. Kwun Tong as a residential area being typical case posing high density and compact characteristics. The two focuses stress on two aims, while the study of Hong Kong as a high-density compact city emphasize on providing information on broader context, such as history, policy and outcome general problems, the focus on Kwun Tong is chosen to provide more subjective, and experience-based evaluation on the living environment in Hong Kong, providing some first-hand evaluation as well as exploring the matter from a bottom-up angle. To achieve the two goals with the two site selected, different sampling method are necessary.

Hong Kong as a case study would mainly sample stakeholders who have a better knowledge of the overall development and condition of Hong Kong, in particular in housing and living environment aspects. Therefore, in this case, expert sampling would be the major strategy. Experts in fields including, urban planning, community planning, housing development, liveable community development and transportation would be selected. The experts were invited to participate in the study by email, and the interviews were conducted in their offices or convenient locations such as local café, according to different needs. The interview which focuses on the overall living condition, benefits and barriers brought by the high-density compact development strategies were explored by detail interviews, which on average took around 40-60 minutes each. In total, five experts interview were conducted.

Kwun Tong as a specific site was selected to collect more personal descriptions of the living experiences in the high-density compact environment. Thus, to provide more information on how residents from such environment would define liveability, as well as to explore the benefits and barriers brought by the high density compact urban strategy from the local eye and to explore what would be the primary concern in making a high-density compact neighbourhood liveable from their very own experiences. To collect opinion from the residents, I have also invited local concern group Living in Kwun Tong for an interview. The interview took around 45 minutes. Through the facilitation of Kwun Tong Community Association, I was also able to get contacted with 10 Kwun Tong Districts residents who are willing to talk about their living experience in the district. These interviews results would be used to further elaborate contents as found in community expert’s interview. 2 interviewees have agreed for attending a detailed interview, each took around 25 minutes. While 8 of them agreed for a short phone interview, and they ranged from 8 to 15 minutes each.

Interview Details The interviews were semi-structured. As the research is exploratory, there will be several key questions surrounding the hypotheses posed concerning the local benefits and the trade-offs of growing urban density and compactness. The interview is not restricted to questions that the interviewer initially intends to pose, if some important issue arises in the process, and are judged to be relevant, this issue would be further pursued, all interview questions template could be found in Appendix A. The semi- structured interviews allow the opportunity for in-depth discussion with a variety of experts within a framework. The details of expert interviews, community expert interviews and local resident’s interviews are presented as below:

Focus Name Date Duration

Transportation Mr. Simon Ng (Independent 21 November, 2017 40 Minutes consultant working on air quality, urban transportation and sustainability issues; Co- author of Global Cities: Urban Environments in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China)

Housing Dr. Edward Yiu (Scholar; 3 November, 2017 58 Minutes Former Legislative Councilor in Hong Kong representing Architectural, surveying, planning and Landscape functional constituency)

Urban environment, Ms. Carine Lai (Researcher in 6 November, 2017 54 Minutes public space/ green Local Think Tank, Chief space adequacy Researcher for the project Unopened Space)

Urban Environment Dr. Corine Wong (Researcher 20 November, 2017 58 Minutes and Health focus on urban environment and psychological distress )

General Urban Expert Mr. Alfred Ho (Architect; 5 November, 2017 1Hour 50 Independent Urban Minutes Researcher; Author at Hong Kong Free Press)

Table 2 Experts Interviews

Focus Name Date Duration

Kwun Tong Living in Kwun Tong (Concern 7 December, 2017 49 Minutes Community Expert Group)

Table 3 Community Experts Interviews

Focus Name Date Duration

Local Experiences Ms Ip, 20s 12 December, 2017 25 Minutes

Local Experiences Ms Chan, Late 20s 17 December, 2017 25 Minutes

Local Experiences Mr Chow,89 12 November, 2017 15 Minutes

Local Experiences Ms Lam, 30s 12 November, 2017 10 Minutes

Local Experiences Mr Chan, 10s 12 November, 2017 8 Minutes

Local Experiences Mr Cheung, 20s 14 November, 2017 8 Minutes

Local Experiences Mr Chu, 10s 14 November, 2017 10 Minutes

Local Experiences Mr Kam, 90 14 November, 2017 13 Minutes

Local Experiences Mrs Fong, 30s 14 November, 2017 15 Minutes

Local Experiences Mrs Kwok, 50s 14 November, 2017 10 Minutes

Table 4 Residents Interviews

3.4.2 OTHER SUPPORTIVE DATA A site visit would be conducted in Kwun Tong to provide site data on the compactness of the site, as well as collecting visual data to illustrate the living environment in Kwun Tong. Other secondary data, in the form of plans, density, renewal and development strategies would be reviewed in other to provide contextual analysis on the high-density compact living environment of Hong Kong. Other Text- based documents, such as newspapers, magazine articles and government documents would also be included to provide more contextual information. The secondary data, coupled with the interview data, will assist in providing a rich picture of the good and bad urban experience of the high-density compact city.

(Appendix A contains the collection of guiding questions to be used for the experts; Appendix B contains the collection of guiding questions to be used for the local resident representatives; Appendix C contains the actual interview transcripts of interviews with experts, and Appendix D contains the actual interview transcripts of interviews with local resident representatives.)

3.5 FRAMEWORK FOR DATA ANALYSIS All interviews will be recorded and transcribed. An important part of this research is to analyse the case study data, compare different perspectives and stakeholder opinion on one issue, and to reflect on the case study results concerning the findings in the Literature Review. The reflective process of the research is presented in below figure:

Figure 5 Qualitative data analysis process for High density compact city liveability case study

After transcription and translation of all interviews recording, data would be coded and analysed by Nvivo software. Findings would be compared between different stakeholders as well as to the findings from the literature review. All the findings will be performed in the discussion section systematically.

3.6 LIMITATIONS AND POTENTIAL PROBLEMS There are limitations to this research concerning the methodology and case chosen.

To start with, the non-random character of cases studies is a major limitation of this study. Although in previous sections it is pointed out that there are increasing cities that are sharing similar urban form, owing to the different contextual influence, the findings from the selected case study of this research could be hardly generalised to a larger scale. Instead of immediate generalizability, the research is emphasising on the relatability of the study, cities who share similar development form may relate to the findings of the case study of Hong Kong. Meanwhile, generalisation would take place gradually over a period of time, when more empirical research case studies in high-density compact cities are being implemented.

Using interviews as the main means of data collection could raise questions about the reliability of the research. As interviews highly rely on personal opinion, it is open to bias and inaccuracy. To address the reliability concerns of this research, the research steps are made transparent, and strategy was discussed in a detailed manner. By making the research process, and justification behind the research strategy as transparent and detailed as possible, it is hoped to reduce concerns about reliability. Translation of the interview results would be another major concern and limitation of the research. Interviews were conducted in Cantonese, Mandarin or English, in a language which the interviewee found comfortable with, to ensure the information will not suffer from loss due to the language barrier. However, translation of the interviews from Cantonese to English is challenging as there is no practical guide for the translation. In particular, Cantonese is a colloquial language which involves a lot of words that are not well documented in the Chinese written language, including the dictionary. The interpretation of the meaning behind the words would be determined by the knowledge of the researcher. Owing to limited resources, the researcher had to conduct the translation work by herself. Therefore, in the translation process, mistranslation could be one of the concern.

CHAPTER 4 URBAN FORM ANALYTICS

4.1 THE MACRO-CONTEXT OF HIGH DENSITY COMPACT DEVELOPMENT IN HONG KONG Before diving into the discussion on Hong Kong’s liveability, it is necessary to introduce and discuss the macro-contextual features of high-density compact development in Hong Kong and how do the contextual forces shape the development and the outcome urban form of Hong Kong. In the following section, previous important work of historians documenting the compact development origin and policies were reviewed and presented.

4.1.1 THE ORIGIN (REASON, TRACING BACK TO 1950S) Rapid growth of population

Hong Kong is a young city, which has been developed only for around 170 years. The small fishing village, with merely any population, was colonised by the British since 1842, with the signage of the Nanjing Treaty. According to the first survey record conducted by the British in 1841, there are merely 5000 Han Chinese living on the island (Dennys, 1867). Instead of continuous natural growth of population, Hong Kong’s population growth was mostly contributed by migrants or refugee from Mainland China during the colonial period. Several historical events have stimulated rapid population influx to Hong Kong, including

1. 1850-1861 Taiping Rebellion Movement (Population growth to around 120,000)

2. Post-Second World War 1945-1951 (Population growth from 650,000 to 2,020,000) (Shelton, Karakiewicz, & Kvan, 2010)

The rapid influx of population had brought the government enormous housing challenge. The population continues to grow at a yearly rate of around 5% after 1951. The newly income refugee could hardly live in a safe environment. Owing to the lack of housing in the city, a lot has been living in the temporary housing. In the face of the challenge, there was a surging need for the government to find a way to accommodate the huge population in the city.

The land shortage

It is easier to say than to build in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is not only small in size, but its landscape also limited the probable development. With a total area of 979 km square back in 1958, the built area was only 57 km square, around 5% of the total (Zhang, 2000). 80% of the undeveloped area was hilly, with slopes of 30-45 degrees (Gregory, 1964 as cited in Zhang, 2000). To build on the steep hills was challenging for the government, but the rapidly growing population put a surging need for good urban plans. The combination of the two factor had resulted in an architectural trial in this city, which is to develop in a compact and high-density way.

4.1.2 THE POLICY (DEVELOPMENT POLICY) Affordable high-density housing

In the face of the considerable housing pressure, and to control the spread of squatters, the British colonial government had started to plan for public housing in forms of high-rise and high-density and followed by developing the new area to house the large population, which is called the new towns. The New Towns were planned at around 1960s, with the design principle of high density and mixed-use development. The new development sites were aimed to develop new urban districts which could be balanced and self-contained.

The idea of New Towns was surprisingly originated from the thought of ‘Garden City’ as proposed by Ebenezer Howard, who was being considered as de-centrist. The Hong Kong Government, in the face of the overcrowding city centre, had decided to follow the decentralise urban planning idea to house the growing population. However, owing to the land scarcity, the new towns were planned with much higher density than the original ‘garden city’. This new development strategy contributed to the urban form of Hong Kong in which the city is now constituted of dispersing towns with exceptional high densities.

Green belt and Country Park

At the same time, as a British Colony, the planning of Hong Kong was hugely influenced by the British planning ideas. The idea of Howard, which is to plan green belt to contain urban sprawl, was also being adopted in Hong Kong. In 1947, the Hong Kong Government appointed Sir Patrick Abercrombie, who had proposed the Greater London Plan, to advice on the planning in Hong Kong. His advice on adopting the principle of Green Belt in Hong Kong had later lead to the inclusion of ‘Green Belt’ Zone in the planning zoning system in Hong Kong, which is noted that the zone marked “terrain where comprehensive urban development is not desirable or possible” (Tang, Wong, & Lee, Greenbelt in a compact city: A zone for conservation or transition? , 2007).

In 1977, the countryside programme which was targeted to protect the countryside of Hong Kong from its rapid urban development and expansion was instituted. It serves to rationalise and regulate countryside recreation. Being zoned as ‘country parks and special areas’ designated under the Country Parks Ordinance enacted in 1976, the zone covers 44300 ha, which is 40% of Hong Kong total land area (Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, 2016). The country parks were being protected from development, however, the vast area being protected means that the consolidation of already saturated inner urban area subject is almost inevitable.

Figure 6 Geographical Distribution of green belt zones and country parks in Hong Kong, 2005 (Tang, Wong, & Lee, Green Belt, Countryside Conservation and Local Politics: A Hong Kong Case Study, 2005)

To prevent further urban sprawl, the planning of country parks and the green belt was adopted and remained to be the dominant planning force in Hong Kong limiting the urban expansion. Resulting in an on-going consolidating urban centre, but 60% of the land was remained to be protected and not developed. Therefore, the urban density of Hong Kong is extremely high, poses a jaw-dropping density of over 27, 330 people/km sq (Hong Kong Planning Department, 2016). While the average population density including the protected area would be 6690 people/km sq (Census and Statistic Department of Hong Kong Government, 2015).

TOD development strategy

As land resources are in scarcity, while the development need is surging, the resulting urban development density was being pushed up. The urban form of high-rise, high density, comprehensive development is dominating the urban scene in Hong Kong. With the large number of people to house in a small area, the transportation infrastructure is of high concern. How to provide a sufficient, yet efficient transportation and road system for commuting had become one of the major challenges back in the 1950s. As mentioned above, Hong Kong had implemented New Town development projects to create ‘satellite’ towns in the city. The project of large-scale development allowed the Hong Kong government to reform the transportation system in Hong Kong, where they have adopted the transit- oriented development (TOD) strategy to bring a high efficient mass transit system, which is affordable for the common, while at the same time lowering the pressure of the road system for the large population. The Mass Transit Railway Corporation was established to manage the development of the rail-led transportation system in Hong Kong back in the 1960s - 1970s. The public transit was a successful tactic which provides reliable transportation to local residents. The public transportation took up 88 % of the total travels, while railway took up 50% of the 88% (Transport Department of the Hong Kong Government, 2014), making Hong Kong one of the cities with the lowest rate of private car usage.

4.1.3 THE RESULTING OUTCOME

Under these development strategies, the resulting urban form in Hong Kong is unique in a sense where the developed area remains to be constrained in the 40% of the land, while 60% of the land is being preserved in its original state. The original development scheme to develop compactly, with higher density and efficient public transport to protect the environment, could be seen as effective. However, the continuing growth in population is pushing further consolidation in the inner city and have been creating hot debate in the Hong Kong society regarding land resources. Country park protection policy was being reviewed according to the Hong Kong government to identify more land for development (Hong Kong Government, 2017). The continuing consolidation of the inner city is as well creating a higher and higher population density in the urban area, noting that Kwun Tong District is the highest with 57,250 pp/km square. In exchange, owing to the high population density, businesses were well supported with sufficient financial sources, and convenience to shops, facilities and other uses could be achieved in many residential districts in Hong Kong.

4.2 URBAN LIVING ENVIRONMENT OF KWUN TONG (FIELD DATA) In the following, background information on the specific chosen area – Kwun Tong would be discussed to build a ground for further discussion and analysis of the data collected. In this section, data from documents and field observation would be analysed and presented.

4.2.1 HISTORY AND BACKGROUND Kwun Tong is one of the 18 districts in Hong Kong. Consist of a total land area of 11.05 km square, housing more than 600,000 populations, Kwun Tong is currently the most densely populated district in Hong Kong, with an urban density of 57,250 pp/km square. Kwun Tong district consists of 5 major sub-centres, including Kwun Tong Central, Ngau Tau Kok Area, Sau Mau Ping Area, Lam Tin Area, and Yau Tong Area.

Figure 7 Map of Kwun Tong District (Google Map, 2018)

Kwun Tong was one of the major industrial towns back in the 1950s, until 2000s. It had been supporting the industrial economy of Hong Kong. As mentioned above, the Hong Kong Government had planned to develop new towns, which named as ‘satellite towns’ by the Hong Kong government back in the 1950s, to house the ever-growing population. Among the plans, Kwun Tong was one of the earliest ‘satellite towns’ being developed. It was originally planned according to the theory of ‘Garden City’ as suggested by Ebenezer Howard. However, the post-war migration had created great pressure on the government. The original planning, which emphasis on a compact yet low-density development was being amended to house more people, and it turned out to have to make Kwun Tong one of the densest residential districts since the 1970s.

4.2.2 URBAN FORM In the following, field data collected during site visits to Kwun Tong would be analysed, together with the support materials collected from different sources, a general picture of Kwun Tong’s living environment would be drawn.

4.2.2.1 Building and Housing According to the Population Census conducted by the Hong Kong Government, Kwun Tong district consists of 5 different type of housing, including around 120,000 units of public rental housing, around 32,000 units of Subsidised Home Ownership housing, around 63,000 units of private permanent housing, around 500 units of non-domestic housing and around 250 units of temporary housing (Hong Kong Government, 2017). Out of about 220,000 households in total who are residing in this district, over 65% of them are sole tenants (app. 140,000 households). As for the rental cost, the median for public rental housing would be 1,750 HKD (180EUR), while private permanent housing cost around 6,280 HKD (647 EUR) per month. The median floor area of accommodation would be 35 sq./m per housing unit, which is the lowest of all districts in Hong Kong, while the mean figure of Hong Kong is 40 sq./m per housing unit.

Kwun Tong Hong Kong Average

Rental Cost of a 3 person 2000 HKD( 206 EUR) 1750 HKD (180 EUR) household (Public housing)

Rental Cost of a 3 person 6000 HKD ( 618EUR) 8500 HKD (878 EUR) household (Private housing)

Median Floor area of a 3 person 35 Sq./m 40 Sq./m household accommodation unit (Sq. meter)

Median Floor area of 13 Sq./m 15 Sq./m accommodation unit (Sq. meter) per capita

Average Floor area of public N/A 13.2 Sq./m housing unit per capita (2017)

Median rent to income ratio 10.7% 9.3% (Public Housing)

Median rent to income ratio 23.5% 29.3% (Private Housing)

Median Monthly Domestic 17,420 (1,795 EUR) 16,000 (1,649 EUR) Household Income (Public Housing)

Median Monthly Domestic 35,000 (3,606 EUR) 33,680 (3,470 EUR) Household Income (Private Housing)

Table 5 Housing Figures Hong Kong and Kwun Tong (Hong Kong Government, 2017)

According to the figure from Hong Kong Government Census and Housing Department (Table 5), we could observe that while public housing units are highly affordable, they remain to be in small size. The median floor area of public housing unit per capita would be 13.2 sq./m including bathrooms, kitchen or living room area. The average rent per sq meter in Kwun Tong would be approximately around 57 HKD (5.66 EUR) for public housing, and 171 HKD (17.6 EUR) for private housing.

It could be observed that the rent level for public housing is highly affordable, while that of private housing is relatively high. Considering the median rent to income ratio for private housing which is 29.3% for Hong Kong as a whole, that means more than 50% of the household which are living in private housing in Hong Kong are paying more than 29.3% of their income to rent. With reference to the traditional concept, where housing cost exceeding 30% of household income could be viewed as burdensome, around 50% of household who are living in private housing is living in a rent-burdened condition.

The rental cost is important as it could influence the choice of housing for different household and their ability to move, which will be discussed in later sections.

Site Observation

As observed during site visits, Kwun Tong’s housing environment is dense, dominant with high-rise buildings which are around 20-30 floors, and most older style housing remains to be mixed-use. The mixed-use form of housing is mainly a combination of business use and residential use, it is typical that the ground floor would be shops and from second or third floor onwards it would be residential housing.

Figure 8 Site Photo Illustrating the Mixed-use housing condition in Kwun Tong

A wide range of housing could be found in Kwun Tong, which was also mentioned in the figures from the government in above section. The majority is living in public rental housing, followed by private permanent housing and Subsidized Home Ownership housing. Public rental housing refers to the Government’s subsidised public housing for citizens who cannot afford private rental housing. It is considered as one of the social security measures. The Home Ownership Scheme, on the other hand, is a home sale programme where the government sells apartments to eligible public housing tenants or lower-income residents at prices below the market level. However, it is worth noting that although more than 63,000 people are residing in private permanent housing in Kwun Tong, there is a considerable number of them could be the lower class population who have to rent private housing flats owing to the long waiting line to public housing allocation. According to the figure from the Housing Authority of Hong Kong, there were more than 155,100 regular application for public housing and the waiting time could be more than 4.7 years (Hong Kong Housing Authority, 2017).

Figure 9 Outline Zoning Plan of Kwun Tong

Referring to Figure 9, the Outline Zoning Plan of Kwun Tong indicates that zoning of the district. The largest portion of brick red refers to Residential Group (A), which indicates the residential housing group with the highest density. According to the Government definition, “This zone is intended primarily for high-density residential developments. Commercial uses are always permitted on the lowest three floors of a building or in the purpose-designed nonresidential portion of an existing building.” (Town Planning Board, Hong Kong, n.d.). Therefore, from figure 9, we could observe that a large portion of residential development in Kwun Tong is zoned under R(A) category, which means that the development density is relatively high in these areas. This also echoes to the observation of the researcher, where a large portion of residential buildings are densely packed together (Figure 10), and the urban form appears to be dense and crowded. In return, the proximity to various commercial shops and facilities could be observed as a benefit. Schools, hospital, clinics or community centres are highly accessible. The light blue zoning on the Outline Zoning Plan (Figure 9) indicates the land zoned for "Government, Institution or Community" (GIC) uses. Proximity to facilities could be observed.

Figure 10 Site Photo of Housing Form in Kwun Tong

4.2.2.2 Public Spaces Provision

Figure 11 Map of Parks (Left) and Garden and Sitting Area (Right) (Hong Kong Public Space Initiative, 2016)

Figure 11 consists of two maps from the Hong Kong Public Space Initiative, documenting the location of two categories of public spaces, including (1) Parks and (2) Garden and Sitting Area. Considering the population of Kwun Tong, more than 600,000 people are living within this boundary, the park provision is apparently insufficient. Compare to parks, garden and sitting area refers to smaller spaces where seats are provided, however, the quantity as shown on the map is also very little.

As observed during the site study, the green spaces in Kwun Tong district are in general not located in the city centre. The location of the parks is relatively remote. There is relatively a more extensive provision of gardens or sitting area in the district. However, the facilities inside these sitting area are limited to seats or benches. The visitors of these spaces are mainly residents as observed. However, most are elderly and social interaction could hardly be observed.

4.2.2.3 Transportation Modes

Figure 12 Site Photos on Transportation Hub

The major transportation mode inside Kwun Tong district would be minibuses, while transportation to the outer area would mainly rely on the buses and Metro as observed. From figure 12, the current transportation hub in Kwun Tong central could be observed. It is mainly composed of a large bus terminal with the metro located right next to it, which is about 5 minutes’ walk.

4.2.2.4 Kwun Tong Urban Renewal Project Details

Kwun Tong Central area is currently undergoing a large-scale urban renewal project, starting from 2007 and is expected to be completed by 2026.

The main site which was originally old and low-rise residential housing was expected to be developed into a residential and commercial hub. The residential housing would mainly be Residential Group (A), which means high-rise with a plot ratio of 7.5 (Kwun Tong District Council, 2007).

The original site housed 5000 residents, and the renewal work is expected to bring a lot more resident into the area. The new residential site would be developed in the form of 50-floors high-rise, 2000 units and are expected to house 10000 people. Figure 13 Kwun Tong Town Centre Urban Renewal Site Map Together with Yuet Wah Street Site and the two development project in Anderson Road, the population in Kwun Tong District is expected to grow by 73,000, approaching a total population of 700,000 (Hong Kong Economic Times, 2014).

CHAPTER 5 CASE STUDY RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS TESTING

This chapter reveals the results of the case study described in Chapter 3 Methodology, including experts interview for a general review of Hong Kong as a whole, and local interviews with Kwun Tong Residents to explore in-depth resident living experiences. The research concentrates on two case studies; one is to study Hong Kong as a whole, to study the overall performances of the compact development policies. On the other hand, the second case study of Kwun Tong district would be emphasised on the living experience of local residents in such environment and to elaborate on the liveability of a compact city from a bottom-up angle. In total, five expert interviews, one community expert interview and ten resident interviews were conducted. The result would be analysed in a highly structured way. As discovered in Chapter 2 Literature review, scholars and urbanists had researched and discovered a wide range of impact of the compact form of development on urban liveability, together with much positive assumption was being made from the supporters of compact city theory. However, these claims were yet to be verified systematically. Therefore, in this chapter, the research findings would be presented under the title of the hypotheses as mentioned earlier, to conduct a hypothesis testing procedure. The hypotheses will be verified, falsified or refined through the analysation of empirical data. Following the presentation of the ‘set context’ of the cases in previous Chapter 4, in this chapter, the analysis would be primarily based on the interview data. The transcripts of the interviews for experts can be found in Appendix B; the transcripts for the residents and community expert from Kwun Tong District are in Appendix C.

5.1 URBAN LIVEABILITY CAN BENEFIT THROUGH

5.1.1 SUFFICIENT AND ACCESSIBLE PROTECTED GREEN SPACES FOR PUBLIC “One major principle of the compact city theory was to contain the area of urban development, by doing so, urban sprawl could be prevented and thus preserve the nature surrounding the urban area. In this principle, not only does the environment was being protected, the green spaces are noted to be important in the social viewpoint. The green was also being viewed as the ‘back garden’ of the city, allowing urban dwellers to have access to nature (Burton, 2002; Gordon and Richardson, 1997).”(Section 2.2.2)

In the compact city theory, one of the key assumptions is that: To develop compactly and prevent sprawl, there should be policy or regulations set up to prevent further sprawling to nature. As mentioned in section 4.1.2, Hong Kong Government had adopted the ‘green belt’ planning policy to contain urban sprawl. On the other hand, on 1977, the Hong Kong government had established the countryside programme targeted to protect the countryside of Hong Kong, over 40% of Hong Kong total land area is being zoned as ‘country parks and special areas’. Therefore, from the viewpoint of physical figures, the statement of ‘sufficient and accessible protected green spaces for the public’ is true.

Experts’ responses

During the interviews with experts, when asking about the role of these ‘protected green spaces’ in enhancing urban liveability, all of the respondents responded positively. Ms Lai, who was previously worked in Civic Exchange as a researcher and was responsible for open space research responded that ‘…we have a lot of country parks space and that is really great. The good thing is that people can travel for half an hour to one hour then they could reach the country-side and enjoy the kind of building-less environment.’, she evaluated the quantity of country park and emphasised the accessibility of these country parks in terms of comparing to other cities ‘It's difficult for a lot of other cities because the city just spread out so far and you have to travel over 3-4 hours before you even reach the edge.’. The highly compact urban form allows the protected green spaces to be highly accessible. Housing expert, Dr Yiu also believed that the country parks are playing an important role in enhancing the urban liveability of Hong Kong. From his own experience as a local resident, he said ‘From my viewpoint, after a week of overly crowded city life, at least I could spend my weekend in the country parks.’, indicating that country parks could be an important weekend recreation spot for local residents. He added ‘No matter how small my house is, at least during holidays, I could be able to enjoy my time in country parks for free.’, suggested that country park could also be a way to balance out the negative impact brought by small living space in Hong Kong.

Residents’ responses

The residents’ responses were largely in line with the view of experts. Mr Yuen, the representative of the Kwun Tong local concern group Living in Kwun Tong, evaluated that country park is something that Hong Kong ‘did pretty well’. He said ‘Hong Kong people have a really high average square meter of country parks…. The country park is something good then why should we damage it’. Local resident Mrs Fong also described the importance of country parks for her family. When asked about her experience with local green space, she said it is not very often that her family would spend time in their neighbourhood, instead, ‘…I, my husband and our children would rather go outside to the countryside to enjoy some greenery and nature than staying in our neighbourhood.’.

To sum up, open space expert, Ms Lai has acknowledged that the ‘protected green space in Hong Kong’ is in general sufficient and accessible. Housing expert, Dr Yiu also suggested that the ‘protected green space’ could act as a way to balance out the negative impact brought by small and limited living space in Hong Kong. Residents’ responses had echoed with their claims, proving that country parks could have a significant role regarding urban liveability of a compact city. However, it is important also to note that not all of the local residents’ have mentioned about the country park. Most, when talked about their open space expectations, would focus on the inner-city or community open space. In particular, for the elderly, they emphasised the necessity of close and sufficient inner-city public spaces. One reason could be that not everyone could be able to travel far to the edge of the city. Also, the country parks are mostly hilly, which limits the chance for elderly or people with difficulties to go and enjoy them. Thus, also the role of country park is highly important, it could not replace the role of inner-city public space.

Therefore, the hypothesis:

H1 (I) Urban liveability can benefit through sufficient and accessible protected green spaces for the public is correct in Hong Kong’s case.

5.1.2 AFFORDABLE AND LESS POLLUTING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION Public transportation is a complicated topic, as mentioned in section 2.2, one of the key elements of compact city theory is about the introduction of the public transportation system. The idea is that the public transportation use could limit the rise in car ownership and rise. While at the same time introduce the following positive advantages such as – 1. more efficient use of space; 2. Produce a smaller amount of solid waste 3. safer and fewer social cost; 4. Less noise and air pollution because of the use of electricity instead of fossil fuels (Vlegual, 1995 as cited in (Nijkamp & Rienstra, 1996).

5.1.2.1 Efficiency and convenience Urban researcher Mr Ho had mentioned that the compact way of development in Hong Kong allowed public transportation system and facilities to be built ‘in a more compact way and so it would be more convenient’. Dr Yiu also evaluated the current public transportation system in Hong Kong is ‘performing extremely well’. Transportation expert, Mr Simon Ng, have evaluated the performances of the public transportation system as “very well developed and efficient” and “the system provides different choices and the service level is also very high… with regular services and short-headways like for rail services and bus services.”.

It is found that in general, opinion agrees that the transportation system in Hong Kong is efficient and convenient. Efficiency and convenience of the transportation had observed to be one of the major consideration for respondents. The convenience and efficiency of Hong Kong’s public transportation services are mentioned by many to be one of the key in Hong Kong which maintains a good level of urban liveability. The respondents, in general, would associate public transportation to these terms: ‘efficiency’ and ‘convenience’. 5 out of 10 local residents have mentioned that the public transportation in Kwun Tong is ‘convenient’, however, some have added that the service is not ‘efficient’ owing to problems such as ‘not in time’ and ‘congestions during rush hours’.

However, efficiency aside, can this effect be associated with the compact urban form itself?

According to Mr Ng, he mentioned that Hong Kong is the only city which “running a public transport system in a financially sustainable situation without any form of heavy-handed government subsidy” when all of the companies running these services are private companies. He stated that this is only possible when “we have a very high density, and we have a high density in a sense that most of the people are living or they are having their activities along major urban corridors”. The highly compact and dense nature of Hong Kong where most population were concentrated at the urban area, allows the private companies running the transportation businesses be able to make a profit and sustain their businesses, but still with an affordable price tag. The TOD strategy of Hong Kong could be considered as highly successful, when the public transportation took up 88 % of the total travels (Transport Department of the Hong Kong Government, 2014), making Hong Kong one of the cities with the lowest rate of private car usage.

Therefore, the efficiency and convenience of the public transportation system, to a large extent, rely on the densely populated urban environment. At the same time, this urban form allows the transportation system remain to be affordable, which would be discussed in next section.

To sum up, the experts considered the public transportation as ‘efficient’ in Hong Kong. The compact urban form contributed to a highly concentrated urban population in Hong Kong, and this condition made transportation services to run regularly with short-headways, which make the public transportation system convenient and efficient. Hence, enhancing the urban liveability of citizens. However, in the case of Kwun Tong residents, they complained about the efficiency of the public transportation, and the worsening condition of the transportation system in Kwun Tong. The biggest problem is ‘overloading’ and ‘congestion’, indicating some possible negative impacts of intensification on the efficiency of the public transportation, which would be discussed in section 6.2.

5.1.2.2 Affordability As discussed in the Literature review section, in the ideal of a compact city, it is to develop in a compact form, where limited the spread, allowing more concentrated distribution of residential housing, therefore, the growing population would be able to support convenient and affordable collective form of transportation: public transportation.

The public transportation system in Hong Kong is an excellent real-life illustration of this logic.

When asked about the affordability of the public transportation system, Mr Ng responded that when comparing to cities with similar economic and development level, the public transport in Hong Kong is “very affordable”, where the transport fare is relatively lower than the other cities. However, noting that Hong Kong is one of the city with a high Gini-coefficient, indicating the huge gap between the rich and poor. He added that “when you think about whether people in Hong Kong can afford to use the transport system then it depends on the income level and obviously also depends on transport mode they are taking… you know, people who are rich are really rich, and they don't use public transport very much, but for those who are less well-off, they have to rely on public transport.”. Kwun Tong local expert, Mr Yuen, responded that the local transportation fee in Kwun Tong is “all right” and “pretty affordable” as well.

As mentioned in the previous section, the affordable transportation system is only possible owing to the highly compact and dense urban form of Hong Kong. Mr Ng suggested, “…our bus system can concentrate to provide services along those corridors, and because of the high patronage...the patronage itself can support the building and the operations of these systems”. This observation echoes to the compact city theory. As the compact city theory suggested, the concentrated distribution of residential housing allowed the public transportation system to reach out to a large pool of potential users. The private companies running the transportation businesses are therefore able to make a profit and sustain their businesses, but still with an affordable price tag. The comment of Mr Ng highlighted the fact that the success of the public transportation system depends on the compact urban form of Hong Kong considerably.

5.1.2.3 Less polluting public transportation In general, the compact city theory assumed that by promoting public transportation and less private car reliance, the pollution from road traffic could be reduced. In the case of Hong Kong, from the figures, the public transportation took up 88 % of the total travels, while railway took up 50% of the 88% (Transport Department of the Hong Kong Government, 2014). This indicated that much travel are relied on public transportation, and not on private cars. However, can this successfully reduce the road pollution?

Mr Ng responded that “my answer would be yes, and no.”. He elaborated that “over the past 50 years, there's always been an emphasis on promoting, and developing and expanding our public transportation system, em… so with more people using public transport, supposedly that should mean that there would be fewer vehicles on the road, and if you are using an off-road mode, like the MTR which is part, or most of the system is underground, and it should help in terms of reducing pollution on the road, or street side.”. His answer stressed on how the pollution ‘should be’ and ‘supposedly’ been reduced. In theory, if people use more public transportation, theoretically, there should be fewer trips being conducted by private cars, and thus, the reduction of road traffics should be able to limit the negative impact of pollutions as well as fuel consumption. However, Mr Ng added that,

“However, as a matter of fact, Hong Kong still has a lot of vehicles and private cars on the road, and the number is growing in the last few years, which is an alarming situation, and you know, diesel vehicles running on street would contribute to pollution, even though these vehicles are now becoming to be cleaner, because of tighter pollution standards. However, if you have larger number of cars, then it will cancel out the improvement brought by the improving emission standards. We are seeing some improvements on road-side pollution, and part of it is related to the use of public transport, and of course, also, with the promotion of cleaner vehicles, it helps. However, if the government continue to fail in controlling the number of vehicles, or the growth of number of vehicles, then, we are creating more problems and troubles.”

Mr Ng highlighted a critical issue in the compact city theory. Although, in theory, when people use more public transportation, their trips by private cars should be reduced. However, owing to the growing population and extremely high-dense urban environment, the ground transportation, would not ‘seem’ to be minimised. The road traffic, although in theory was reduced, in reality, the effect of such reduction would not be very evident. Imagine, on top of the same size of land, while city A housed 100 families, and for city B who decided to develop in higher density and housed 500 families. For city A, if each family owns a car, then 100 cars would be running on the surface. As for high dense city B, even if only 20% of them would buy a car, there would still be 100 cars running on the surface, not to mention the rest are making use of public transportation, so the number of roads traffics would further increase.

The roadside pollution condition, as mentioned by Mr Ng, could be seen as having slight improvements as there are increasing reliance on the Metro. However, owing to the increasing number of private cars, the improvement is not very noticeable.

Vehicles Registration Number 900000 800000 700000 600000 500000 400000 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Private Cars Total Registration

Total Registration of all vehicles

FIGURE 14 VEHICLES REGISTRATION NUMBER (TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT, THE GOVERNMENT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION, 2017)

According to figure 14 above, it could be observed that the number of private car total registration is rising continuously from 2013 to 2017, from 517,997 increased to 600,443 at the end of 2017, and the figure has not included that of public transportation or goods vehicles as well. Therefore, during this five years of time, there are almost 100,000 new cars on the road in Hong Kong. The endless rising number of private cars indicating the rising pressure on the existing road transportation and infrastructure. Therefore, it is highly reasonable that, although in theory, the number of cars in a high- density compact city could be less than other cities in similar population size, the road traffic does not necessarily appear to be in smaller number. Therefore, the expectation of solving road traffic pollution by building in higher density could be an unrealistic expectation. In the opposite, owing to the high- density urban form, it is possible that a more extensive population are being exposed to the roadside pollutions. The impact of pollution would be discussed further in section 5.2.2.

Hillman suggested that building in a compact way would be able to control noise and air pollution of cars as well as resuming street life which was destructed by heavy traffics (1996). However, from Hong Kong case study, it could be observed that this hypothesis may not be accurate. However, the hypothesis which focuses on efficient use of resources (i.e. Fuel and energy) (OECD, 2012; Breheny, 1996), is mostly correct.

To sum up, considering the second hypothesis:

H1(II) Urban liveability can benefit through affordable and less polluting public transportation.

From the above analysis, urban liveability in Hong Kong had benefited from the well-developed and well-connected public transportation system as agreed by most respondents. However, instead of emphasising on ‘less-polluting’, more of the benefits seem to come from the high efficiency of the public transportation system, which is essential in making urban life ‘convenient’. Therefore, the second hypothesis shall be refined as

H1(II) Urban liveability can benefit through affordable and highly efficient public transportation system.

5.1.3 HIGH ACCESSIBILITY TO INFRASTRUCTURES AND LOCAL SERVICES The third hypothesis is that a compact city could provide high accessibility to infrastructures and local services, to enhance urban liveability. Owing to the higher density and mixed land use characteristics of compact urban form, it is believed that this form could allow more efficient public service delivery and also better access to local services, infrastructure and jobs (OECD, 2012).

Urban researcher Mr Ho pointed out in Hong Kong “With more population, the transportation system and facilities could be built in a more compact way and so it would be more convenient. In a high-density city, the exciting point is that you can have much variety”, indicating that it is true in this city where a compact development had brought convenience in general. He had added that “when your flat is small, you could not really invite your friends to your home…Hong Kong has a really high restaurant density, and the number of restaurants is really high. The commercial space in the urban area is very well- developed. You could say that this is a small benefit from that problem.”, when the housing area in Hong Kong is insufficient, the vibrant street shops allowed people to balance their social needs.

In general, the residents’ in Kwun Tong agree with that they have high accessibility to local services and infrastructures, with some minor complaints in some specific areas.

To start with, plenty of respondents have mentioned about the high accessibility to local commercial services and considered that as a standard for liveability. Ms Chan stated that from the aspect of commercial activities, “Kwun Tung has many choices regarding food. We have a wide variety of restaurants. For daily living, it's pretty convenient cause we have plenty of supermarkets and snacks stores in our neighbourhood.”. Another resident, Ms Lam also added that “It's very convenient. Shopping... Transportation are all very easy.”. Mr Chan also stressed that shopping is very convenient as Kwun Tong has plenty of shopping malls “There are also plenty of shopping malls here in Kwun Tong, such as APM. It's large scale and has plenty of shops.”. To sum up, an overall positive attitude could be seen from the respondents on the commercial side. When the interviewer asked the respondents how would they evaluate a liveable environment, a lot indicated that ‘convenience’ or ‘shops’ are important factors for them.

Secondly, when asking about the institutional or social facilities, most of the respondents evaluate that in a positive light. Ms Chan described that “As for Schools or medical facilities, I think it's pretty sufficient. There are two clinics and one dental clinic in my neighbourhood. For schools, there are plenty of kindergartens, primary and secondary schools near my neighbourhood. So it's pretty sufficient.”. Ms Ip, on the other hand found the medical services in the neighbourhood accessible, “I have a big hospital located right next to my house. So it seems like it's okay.”.

The great proximity to commercial activities is also related to the compact urban form. As mentioned by Mr Ho, “With more population, the transportation system and facilities could be built more compactly”. The population density in the urban area can support the high-intensity business activities. As mentioned by Mr Yiu, the great proximity to facilities and services come from the ‘economy of scale’. “Economy of scale. Everything is cheaper in Hong Kong. The same size of land, we are accommodating above 20 times of populations. One launch station would be able to support a lot more people than in elsewhere.” He said. Therefore, it could be observed that, in Hong Kong, the urban liveability is well supported by the proximity to commercial activities and the provision of infrastructures. Schools and medical services are mentioned by respondents as some example of infrastructure inside the neighbourhood. During the site visit to Kwun Tong, it is also observed that a wide variety of infrastructure could be found in short distance from residential buildings. Referring back to figure 9, the outline zoning plan of Kwun Tong, we can also observe a large proportion of “Government, Institution or Community" (GIC) uses lie in the centre of the neighbourhood. The high population density is allowing effective use of resources, as well as a high utilisation rate of facilities. Mr Yuen, from the Kwun Tong Concern Group, also said that the utilisation rate of infrastructure is high to the point that they are “already over-pressured” and “overriding its carrying capacity”.

Although in general, the respondents have agreed that they have high accessibility to local services and infrastructure, a lot have stressed their concern on the quality and management of these infrastructures, which will be further discussed in section 6.2.

To sum up, the hypothesis:

H1(III): Urban liveability can benefit through high accessibility to infrastructures and local services, is verified.

5.1.4 SMALL CONCLUSION The first set of hypotheses concerning the benefits brought by compact development could be seen as largely true. The H1(II) was refined, stressing a focus on the efficiency of the public transportation, which is found to have a more substantial role in affecting people’s evaluation of urban liveability.

H1: Urban liveability can benefit through

I. Sufficient and accessible protected green spaces for the public II. Affordable and highly efficient public transportation III. High accessibility to infrastructures and local services

On the other hand, in Kwun Tong case study, local residents’ responses have often pointed out that in general, they agreed that public transportation and infrastructure are accessible and convenient. However, they have been noting a worsening condition of both aspects. “Overloading” and “Congestion” in transportation have become one of their major complaints, and infrastructures are also seen to be “overriding its carrying capacity”. These problems could be an evidence showing that intensification could also hinder the benefits brought by a compact urban environment. While the intensification is going beyond the ‘balance’, the benefits could be reduced or even turned into something that hinder the urban liveability. This issue would be further discussed in Chapter 6.

5.2 URBAN LIVEABILITY CAN DECREASE DUE TO

5.2.1 HOUSING CONCERNS 5.2.1.1 Lack of living space As mentioned in Chapter 2 Literature Review, Burton had conducted a preliminary analysis to examine the validity of the claims that higher-density urban form promotes social equity. Through her case study in the UK, she went on the examine some claims on housing concerns as well, including ‘domestic living space’ and ‘lack of affordable housing’. Regarding domestic living space, in her case study, she found that there is a direct effect of compactness on the lower average amount of living space, in particular for low-income groups. She had noted that in general, the average number of rooms per household is smaller in a compact, and high-density city (2000). It is also noted that “even though everyone generally has less space, the distribution of private space is relatively egalitarian in a dense city” (Burton,2000).

In the case of Hong Kong, the condition of lacking domestic living space could be observed in general. Housing problems have long been a debatable topic in Hong Kong general society. Starting from the view of experts, when asked about the domestic living space in Hong Kong, they acknowledge that this problem does exist in common. Mr Ho commented that housing issues remained to be one of the major problems which are hindering the urban liveability of Hong Kong. He described that “housing issues, for example, the housing price remains to be high and the housing area remained to be very small”. Dr Yiu responded that from the figure he had, the average housing size would be 14 sq/m per capita in Hong Kong, which is indeed, very small.

When asked about if this domestic housing size is sufficient, Dr Yiu responded by saying that it is hard to judge if that specific floor area is sufficient or not.

“…Let us start with the question ' How much space do people need to satisfy their basic needs?'. Recently research in Taiwan would be a pretty good reference answering this question, in their report, they have stated in minimum, everyone should have one bed, every family should at least have a cooking space etc. They have illustrated the house and calculated the basic area for each human being would be 9 sq/m2. This would be the bare minimum for satisfying basic needs. However, if you asked people if that is sufficient or not, they could hardly tell, as they would consider their own affordability as well. As I could not afford to move or to live in a different district, therefore I have to be satisfied with what I've got. My requirements would be correlated to my affordability, people would consider this as well, so it is hard to say whether this, 9sq/m is sufficient or not, and it's a difficult question to answer.”

Dr Yiu, in his comment, mentioned that there is no standard in measuring ones’ basic housing needs. In Hong Kong, we could observe that it is pretty common to have a small housing size, no matter it is

2 The figure was coming from Taiwan’s ‘Basic Living Standards’ which was implemented by Taiwan’s Construction and Planning Agency Ministry of the Interior. In that research they conducted back in 2008, they divided a dwelling into four living areas: bedroom, kitchen, dining hall, toilet and bathroom. Then, they have calculated the minimum living floor area per capita by calculating the bare minimum functioning areas of the aforementioned 4 living areas. By combining the figure, they concluded that the average minimum would be around 7.5-9 sq.m. (Chinese Society of Housing Studies, 2008). for those who are living in private housing or those who are living in public housing. According to the figure from the Census, the median floor area of accommodation unit in Kwun Tong is around 13 sq./m, and the Hong Kong median is around 15 sq./m (2017). Comparing to other places in the world, the average living space of Hong Kong is particularly small, in particular, while comparing to more developed regions. According to the data from Urban Indicators Programme of the UN, within more developed regions less than 5% of the cities were with floor area per person less than 10-14 sq./m (UNCHS, 1997). Hong Kong, despite the prosperity and well-developed urban environment, over 50% of the population are living in the floor area of less than 15 sq./m now. Public Health expert - Ms Wong, said she had observed that many families she had visited during her research are concern about the living space issue “for example, some would complain about how the family of 5 is living in such a small flat and how crowded it is.”.

Meanwhile, local respondents, in general, agree with the statement that they do not have sufficient domestic living space. Ms Chan described “In my district, the living environment is fine... Well, as I can have my own room. But it's not a must to have our own rooms. Inside my house, my brother could not get a room. He is kind of staying in the living room as we do not have enough rooms.”. Ms Lam, also stressed how the current living environment in Hong Kong is problematic while comparing to her previous living experience in Shenzhen, China. She said, “we have such a small flat that it is so crowded and inconvenient…I could not store much stuff at home, as my home is too small. If I buy a little bit more things, I am going to block the only walking path we have. We have to try hard to assort and coordinate our needs with respect to the spaces we have.”.

Ms Ip also expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of private living space she has. When the interviewer asked about whether she is satisfied with the amount of private living space she has, she said

“I don't. I am just trying to get adapted to it. It is around 300 sq. ft. (~27.9 sq./m) for 3 people. We don't even have a room. To give myself some private space, I have to do some separation by using the furniture. After deducting the space for kitchen and toilets, the private housing space for each of us is insufficient. Very little.”.

According to Ms Ip, she is currently living in a public housing unit with her parents. For her family, each adult could only have 9 sq./m of living space, including spaces inside kitchen and toilets. Therefore, the private space they have for themselves is even less. Ms Ip case, could not be considered as an extreme. Extreme housing conditions, namely ‘cage houses’ and ‘subdivided flats’, are also prominent in Hong Kong. Three experts, including Dr Yiu, Ms Lai and Dr Wong had mentioned about this extreme housing condition and how urban liveability was severely harmed in these housing. ‘cage houses’ or ‘subdivided flats’ are some illegal housing, which are units that are extremely small. House owner developed this kind of ‘subdivided flats’ to provide an ‘affordable’ option to those who could not afford regular housing. Dr Wong described her experience interviewing with these residents,

“So as for some more extreme cases, such as those who are living in cage houses, we have also interviewed them. Unsurprisingly, they have mentioned and take over-crowding as major trouble which is leading to their high-stress level. Not only that, but they also faced physical difficulties as their living space is too limited. For example, they do not even have washrooms inside their living space, so they might need to travel a long distance just to meet this basic needs. These troubles which they faced everything is further worsening their psychological conditions.”

More than 209,740 people in Hong Kong are currently living in these subdivided units, while the median per capita floor area of accommodation is 5.3 sq./m( (Census and Statistics Department, 2016). The extreme housing condition, although, could not be seen as a direct outcome of the compact development policy. However, it could be illustrating Hong Kong, as a compact city is facing the ‘Lack of living space’ challenge.

Mr Yuen, the representative of ‘Living in Kwun Tong’ concern group, commented that the physical living space in Kwun Tong “must not be sufficient”. He added that he could observe a trend that the living space, in general, is decreasing, “Our living space, indeed, keeps dropping, the space that we have nowadays is even less than inside a prison.”. Think-tank researcher, Ms Lai, has spotted the same trend “but I feel like no matter how rich the city gets people's apartments do not get bigger, and in fact, they tend to be getting smaller, so I do not think that is a sustainable trend.”. The demand for housing is significant. However, the land which the city could develop on is limited. The living space in the high- density area is experiencing further shrink.

Mr Yuen pointed out that the lack of living space is a ‘Hong Kong issue’, “The whole Hong Kong does not have sufficient living space. It is hard to say if Kwun Tong residents have sufficient living space as Kwun Tong is also part of Hong Kong. It must not be sufficient.”. He added, “…I will not say it affects liveability by a lot. As everyone shares the same problem, small living area. Well, when everyone shares the same problem, it feels less bad right?”. Mr Yuen’s point is that, in general, everyone living in Hong Kong has less space. Compare to Burton’s finding in her study, “even though everyone generally has less space, the distribution of private space is relatively egalitarian in a dense city” (Burton,2000). We could observe a similar trend in Hong Kong that ‘everyone generally has less space’. However, it is still debatable on whether the distribution of private space in Hong Kong could be considered as ‘egalitarian’ or not with the presents of extreme cases found in Hong Kong. Here also raise another question: even if its ‘egalitarian’, everyone has generally less space, when the ‘less space’ reduced to a level of which it could not even satisfy basic ‘privacy’ or ‘personal needs’, could that be considered as acceptable? The opinion of experts and local residents on the ‘trade-off’ of housing space would be further discussed in Section 6.3.

5.2.1.2 Lack of affordable housing Various scholars in previous Literature Review had also noted that the housing is more expensive in a compact city.

The findings in the case of Hong Kong and Kwun Tong agree with the statement of ‘lack of affordable housing’.

It can be observed that all experts interviewed had evaluated the housing condition as highly unaffordable. Besides, not only the housing expert, all other experts had mentioned about how housing market and the affordability of it could have ripple effects on other aspects of liveability. First, the responses of experts and local residents would be addressed ,and then the ripple effect of housing would be discussed right after.

Experts opinion

As Mr Ho has mentioned, he believes that housing is the most significant problem that undermines the urban liveability of Hong Kong. He said, “I would say, in recent years, the housing would be the biggest problem, in particular, the housing price and area problem is largely affecting the liveability of Hong Kong.”. Housing price has been surging in Hong Kong, and people are well aware of that.

Dr Yiu, as a housing expert, also commented that the liveability of Hong Kong is severely affected by the unaffordability of housing. He said “…we already consecutively came first in the World Most Unaffordable Cities rankings for six years. Even if we only consider the housing affordability, Hong Kong's liveability should already be severely affected.”. It is widely acknowledged that the high housing price in Hong Kong is affecting the quality of life of a citizen. He added that one of the primary reason why the housing price is so high is that people are buying flats as a form of profit-seeking investment, which influences the housing price level in Hong Kong.

Residents comment

Most respondents had replied that the unaffordable rent and the high housing price affected their quality of life and how they evaluated the liveability of a place. For instance, Mr Yuen spoke from the local resident's angle from Kwun Tong, and he described that although the current housing price level is already unaffordable, they are expecting a further rise after urban renewal process. He described that “they knew that the housing price would grow to an unacceptable level after urban renewal”.

Ms Chan, described that it is hard for her to find somewhere to rent in Hong Kong, as the rental level remained to be high. “I have tried to search for some rental options as I might want to move out. However, the rental level in Hong Kong is too high. They usually cost more than 6000 HKD (~800-900 Euros) per person if I would like to rent some places closer to my office. They are not even some high- level listing. Instead, what I am talking about is just some flat inside Tong Lou, which are really old buildings. I feel like... those flats are way too small. I would rather save that money to support my family. The rent outside is definitely too high that I guess I would stay with my family for a bit longer.” Ms Chan said. Ms Chan’s experience is not unique. Ms Ip also speaks the same, where although the rent of her current public housing is affordable, she could hardly afford any other options outside. “…if I want to go out and rent a place, it is almost impossible. For example, if I want to rent a flat, it usually cost me more than 10,000 HKD per month (1041 EUR), that's almost all of my earnings. I can never pay that.” She said.

Mrs Fong, as a current owner of HOS flat, talked about the unaffordable property price. “Even if I have the ability to move, it is pretty hard for me not to buy a flat which is not facing other high-rises. Then, why not just save that money and spend it in other ways.” She mentioned. It could be observed that Mrs Fong had an expectation on a liveable housing condition, and one of her requirement would be ‘not facing other high-rises’. Under the current urban form of Hong Kong, this need could hardly be satisfied. She believed that the housing cost in Hong Kong is higher than other countries, “The U.S. is pretty good... Even for housing, the housing cost would be much cheaper than it here. For the same amount of money, we could buy a much larger flat.”. Her statement indicated a dissatisfaction with the housing environment in Hong Kong in general.

It is interesting that two of the respondents, Mrs Fong and Ms Ip had made a similar comment addressing the housing condition in Hong Kong.

Mrs Fong said, “In Hong Kong, it is like..."If only you can have a flat to live, it's already too good to be true." I sometimes do, think like that.”

Ms Ip also said “Well, having somewhere to stay in Hong Kong is already an achievement...Haha... It is hard to find somewhere to live.”. The two very similar statement highlighted the hardship in Hong Kong to look for a space to live in. The unaffordable housing situation could be considered as true in this case.

The inter-correlated problem of housing price and the reducing living space

When analysing the data, we could observe that the lack of affordable housing could be correlated to the reducing of living space in Hong Kong. “The city has an overly high living standard, to make a living, we are being forced to reduce our living space. Everyone knows that living space is having a big impact on our mental health, but this is a problem related to affordability as well.” Dr Yiu had mentioned that concerning the low affordability of the housing, living space was being reduced. Ms Lai had also mentioned the same, “I mean, basically the rental keeps getting higher, and then they keep dividing because people can't afford anything, like a proper apartment anymore.”. Owing to the growing rental or selling price of housing, people have to divide the already small housing unit to make it affordable. It is also the same for private property developers, where to sell more, they further reduced the housing size, to make it ‘affordable’ for the public. Ms Lai added, “Basically, they could build the smallest, as long as someone is going to buy it.”

Demand and the housing price/space = does that related to the compact urban form?

However, is the lack of affordable housing or living space directly related to the compact city policy or planning? It is hard to conclude with this remark. The housing price could be more of a reflection of the high demand in the market. The continuing growing population and the lack of land reflect the condition where there is a definite growing demand for housing, while the supply remains to be limited. Although the compact development policy, such as the country park policy, could be considered as one of the reasons behind the lacking of land for development, it could not be considered as a direct caused of the whole condition. Burton elaborated that “higher densities may cause the increase in house price: high densities may be the result of higher land values”, (Burton,2000) she explained owing to the higher demand in a compact, high-density city, land and housing are consequently less affordable owing to the higher demand. “Affordability is probably, therefore, most strongly related to the demand for housing, and the density of housing in a city is simply a reflection of this demand” (Burton, 2000). This phenomenon could also be observed in this case study.

To sum up, generally, the phenomenon of lack of affordable housing and small living space could be observed in the case study. While the compact development policy could be one of the reasons why the housing could be subsequently becoming unaffordable and smaller in size, the contextual influences, such as policies or historical influences, remain to be evident.

H2 Urban liveability can decrease due to (I) Housing concerns, including lack of living space and lack of affordable housing is true in this case.

5.2.2 FAILURE IN POLLUTION REDUCTION AND INTENSIFIED IMPACT OF NOISE POLLUTION Other scholars have noted that in a compact, and higher density city, the issue of prominent traffic congestion and noise pollution remained to affect the urban liveability or quality of life of citizens (Howley,2009; McCrea & Walters, 2012). In this section, the pollution problem would be analysed mainly by the local experiences in Kwun Tong.

It could be observed that residents, when asked about their experiences on pollution, a majority have mentioned that they have experienced pollution problems. Mr Yuen, from local concern group Living in Kwun Tong, described the pollution condition in the district. He said “Well in the past it was, of course, a very big problem. It is inevitable to have air pollution inside an industrial town. However, nowadays, it is a lot better. However, still, the huge amount of traffics, or the high dense living environment is still playing a role here. Pollution problem exists. I will not say it is at the worst stage though.”. Comparing to the time where industrial activities were active, the pollution condition now was said to be improved. However, he also emphasises that the heavy traffic in the district could be attributing to the pollution problem. Notably, residents have mentioned three types of pollution which could be found in Kwun Tong district, including noise pollution, air pollution and light pollution.

Mr Chu described that noise pollution ‘often’ happened at night, while Ms Chan commented that as her place is facing major tunnels, she often suffers from noise pollution as well. Although noise pollution problem was mainly caused by traffics in the district, Ms Ip commented that noise pollution could also be a result of the physical form of the city, she suggested “For noise, because I am living in public housing, there are many housing units on the same floor. It is inevitable to be affected by the noise from surrounding flats.”. In a high-density compact city, housing units were in general build with high proximity to each other, leading to the intensified impact of noise pollution.

Dr Yiu also explained, that owing to the development of high compactness and density, it is inevitable to have an intensified impact of noise pollution. “Subdivided housing, in Mongkok…The liveability in these flats, well, according to the residents, midnight, Parknshop would be delivering goods to different stores, they were highly affected by the street activities. They could not sleep at all, also with the light pollution from all the Neon lights on the street”, this briefly described how it is like to live in high-density housing. Owing to the high-density structure, the impact of noise and lighting could be amplified, while the affected population could be enlarged. Mr Ng, from the transportation angle, also commented that the TOD development strategy in Hong Kong, where residential housing was usually placed on top of or nearby transportation hub, could have a definite noise impact on the residents. “Given the compactness and density. However, I think it is part and partial of developing a dense city I am not saying that we should ignore noise pollution problem. Actually, it is a huge problem. However, if you look at what government has been doing, regarding trying to address environmental issues related to the transportation system, most pollution is not high on the agenda.” He mentioned that the traffic noise could be a considerable problem to local urban liveability. As for pollution reduction, there is not much evidence from the local angle to support nor reject the claim, therefore, ‘failure in pollution reduction’, by the case study could not be addressed. However, it is clear that the impact of noise pollution is intensified in a high-density compact structure.

Therefore, the hypothesis would be modified to:

H2 Urban liveability can decrease due to (II) intensified impact of noise pollution.

5.2.3 IN-CITY INSUFFICIENT GREEN OR OPEN SPACE Burton found that when high densities appear to be positive for access to facilities, the reverse is true for access to open green space. She noted that residents are likely to live further away from the nearest area of green space (2000). In this case study, it is noted that in Hong Kong, rather than live further away from green space, it is rather inadequate provision, as well as the design of the green space found to be not matching with people’s expectations.

Insufficient provision

In-city green or open space is essential as country parks, as those places are where people spent their time in during weekdays. I have consulted housing expert Dr Yiu and Think Tank research Ms Lai to talk about this issue.

The two experts both evaluated the in-city green space provision as ‘insufficient’. Dr Yiu commented that “From the physical living environment aspect, the inner city green spaces are not sufficient”, he added “In older districts, we definitely have not sufficient greenings or public spaces…we only have 'pocket parks' which are small to the point that they usually only contain like 1-2 trees with 1-2 chairs, as if you're staying in prison.”. This statement reflected that in Hong Kong, although Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines regulate in-city green space provision, the provision of the green space could still be insufficient. According to the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines, the standard for public space provision is as the following:

“In the urban areas, including the Metro Area and the New Towns, the standard for the provision of open space is a minimum of 20 ha per 100 000 persons, i.e. 2m2 per person, apportioned as follows:

(a)a minimum of 10 ha per 100 000 persons (i.e. 1m2 per person) for District Open Space; and

(b)a minimum of 10 ha per 100 000 persons (i.e. 1m2 per person) for Local Open Space.”

(Planning Department, 2015).

Ms Lai also said the same, “For another side, it's that within the urban area there is very little open space per capita.”. In Hong Kong, the urban density is very high. However, there is insufficient land for open space planning. Therefore, the standard for provision is not high as well. In many districts, the provision is just slightly higher than the set minimum ‘2m2 per person’. Ms Lai had previously researched on the provision of in-city public space, she revealed “... well if you look at the figures I came up with, I think in New Towns, there's a difference but not a huge difference. So maybe in the old town, it will be like… Mongkok is the worst, it's like 0.6 or something, but it's between 1 and 2 in most of the urban areas. In the New Territories, it's something like 3 or 3.5, which is a bit better, but within 2 or 3, there's not a huge difference. Um... I think it is basically a few sort of really sparsely populated and wealthy areas that have the most open spaces, and those tend to be the beaches.”. In newer districts, the provision is slightly higher than the minimum. However, for old districts, the provision could be much lower than the set standards. In general, the provision of green space in Hong Kong would lie between 2 to 3 m/square per person. Ms Lai had elaborated that planning process of public open space in Hong Kong could be problematic as it is development-led and usually putting public space as the last priority “Sort of left- over spaces…moreover, sometimes it's not especially accessible. And now when they are trying to add new open spaces, they put them in places that are really strangely inaccessible, because that is where the left-over land happens to be. Um.. The Jordon Valley Park, that was built on an old landfill. However, then you look around that area, no one lives there!”.

The comments of residents also agree with what the experts had suggested. Mr Yuen commented that in Kwun Tong, there is not sufficient green space nor community open space. He said “It is for sure not sufficient. In comparison to other districts, Kwun Tong has a comparatively low amount of green spaces. In Hong Kong, in general, we have three types of public spaces, including large-scale public park, district- scale parks and street-corner resting places. We can observe that in Kwun Tong, as it is an old district, in all three categories we are pretty much lacking.”. Local residents, Ms Lam and Mr Kam also commented that they do not have sufficient space to hang out with friends in Kwun Tong and they are expecting an urban renewal of the district could bring in some more open spaces to the district.

It can also be observed that local residents also l commented that they seldom use such open spaces, Ms Ip commented “There's too little. I do not even remember when was my last time visiting. I seldom use these spaces.”. Although Ms Chan commented that she thinks that there are sufficient green spaces in her neighbourhood, she also commented that she would not use such spaces. She said “Well. I will not...Haha. For parks, unless I am bringing my nephews around, I usually won't visit those places. While... for those open space, there is nothing interesting happening over there which could attract people to stay. Most of those open space is just 'empty space'.”. Their comments highlighted an important message that, although they could have different comments on the provision depends on their community and location, they share the same opinion that the open spaces could not attract them and probably, not meeting their needs. Dr Yiu have also indicated the problem of open space design in Hong Kong, where a lot of it could not ‘meet the needs of people’, he commented “…in Tin Shui Wai, the New Town, we have few 10 thousand square ft. of public spaces where no one ever visits, which was designed in non-human scale at all.”. Alongside with provision issue, public spaces in Hong Kong also faced challenges of not well design and plan, which further hinder the urban liveability.

H2 Urban liveability can decrease due to (III) In-city insufficient green or open space, in this case, is verified.

5.2.4 HIGH-DENSITY INDUCED HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IMPACT OF RESIDENTS Mental Health-well-being/ perceived stress

It is generally asserted that high-rise housing is harmful to residents’ mental health. It is suggested that overcrowded housing could be associated with depression (Gove et al., 1979 as cited in Burton,2000). On the other hand, some suggested that lower densities may also be negative to mental health (Burton, 2000). Most of these discussions were looking from the angle of quantitative data and analysis. However, not much research has asked the residents themselves on the high-density environment and the psychological effect associated with it. In the following, local experiences would be analysed.

In general, experts acknowledged that the impact of compact and high-density urban environment on psychological health and well-being of residents exists. Experts had analysed the issue from different aspects.

Mr Ho commented that in a high-density compact city, people are demanding an extreme level of efficiency to keep everything running smoothly, and he believed that this tendency of a high-density city could create certain pressure on people. “However, the problem here is that the high efficiency is also brought residents a lot of pressure and stress. You can imagine that, if everyone is overly rational and only looking for efficiency, the pressure level here would be high. It could be bad for people's health and well-being.” He commented.

Dr Yiu suggested that the urban form itself, could create certain psychological impact on people living inside, “The high-density living environment may create huge psychological pressure on people and make people less emotionally stable.” He mentioned. He further elaborated that the psychological impact of a compact, high-density urban form could be the biggest shortcoming of this form of development. He stated that health impact would be the biggest shortcoming and “Plenty is suggesting that a high-density environment would lead to psychological impacts on human beings, such as depression. Personally, I believe that high-density would be one of key factor affecting ones' mood, well- being. I have lived in 4 different districts in the past with different densities, and personally, I could feel the emotional difference between different densities.”.

The two experts elaborated the issue from their own living experience in Hong Kong. They stated that the high density compact urban form of Hong Kong could create pressure and stress on people living inside. These statements, which come from their personal observation, agree with the research findings of Dr Wong’s research on how living environment may be related to the psychological distress of Hong Kong citizens.

Dr Corine Wong had previously worked on a Hong Kong scale research on how living environment might be related to the psychological distress of citizens. She indicated that the major finding of this research is that both household indoor living environment and the neighbourhood living environment would have a particular influence on citizen’s psychological health. She revealed that

“When I was asking what would be the biggest concern from their perspective regarding causing psychological distress, a lot of them would answer these few things. First, it is about the crowded environment, a lot would rank crowding as the first or the second item which leads to their psychological distress. Second, the living environment, this is rather a general description. The respondents usually refer to the 'dirtiness', 'are neighbours or community friendly and kind?', 'Would it be too dark at night on the street?', 'Would it be safe?' Such and such. Third, they valued a lot on the outside view from their own flat or housing. For example, a lot have complained that 'when we look outside, it feels so cramped and crowded'. Therefore, the question here is not simply about the living area inside. However, also, when they felt like their house is already very crowded, they would ask 'would it be better if I look out?', If the outside view is providing a more spacious, open impression, then they would feel better. So if you ask me, I would say I believe that the dense environment of Hong Kong would be related to people's health and well-being. No matter it is from the angle of personal living space, as well as the outside view from their flats, I would say the impact does exist.”.

She indicated that the crowdedness of the neighbourhood is one of the major reason of distresses as commented by the residents, as well as the ‘view of the outside’. She pointed out that housing environment is one of the most important parts of the ‘living environment’ which created most impact on residents’ psychological health. “They would usually describe that 'Hong Kong is very crowded' and they would also describe the density of their community/ district. Besides, the household size and density are also one of the major concerns, for example, some would complain about how the family of 5 is living in such a small flat and how crowded it is. All kind of density, or just put it as the high-density environment, would be having an impact on the psychological well-being. The sense of overcrowding, in this case, would be having a major impact on people's psychological well-being.” She mentioned. Lack of living space in housing was found to be one of the major factors in creating psychological distress in citizens. As discussed in section 5.2.1.1, we could observe that in a high-density compact city, lacking living space appears to be a common phenomenon in Hong Kong. In this part, we could also observe that this impact of lacking living space further extend to the psychological health of residents as well.

When asking local residents for their comment on health and well-being impact of the dense environment, it is found to be challenging as the health impact could be subtle, and people may not be conscious on how the living environment could have an impact on their health.

Ms Chan, Ms Ip and Ms Lam have provided some insights on this issue. Ms Lam commented that the density of the city is ‘stressful’, “I hope that we could have more in-house spaces. Such as in Shun Li Estate, it is less dense. It is very dense over here. The buildings are all tightly packed. At first, I had a hard time getting used to this environment, it is very stressful. Now... I am getting used to it”. From her statement, it could be observed that the high-density environment is creating stress for her.

Ms Ip also commented that the impact of lack of living space could have the biggest impact on her psychological health, “The living environment would bring me stress. You know, when you got off work, you might just want to stay at home and rest. However, I do not have enough space for that and I do not feel like staying inside is 'a rest'. It turns out I would just spend my time outside, to find somewhere to stay and relax. This is another kind of 'stress', as I have nowhere to relieve my stress.”. As a result of lack of in-house living space, she commented that as one of the major source of stress. This comment echoes with what Dr Wong had suggested, and we could observe the extended negative impact of lack of living space in a high-density environment.

Ms Chan discussed the issue from the transportation angle, by stating that “There is many times where I feel so stressed when I was waiting for transportation. Standing in lines for a long period of time could be uncomfortable. When every day I have to wait for minibuses to transit to MTR, and in MTR I have to be stuffed inside the crowd, I felt like the time is hardly manageable and there's stress from that.”. In Kwun Tong, the high population density is creating stress on the public transportation system. As discussed in section 5.1.2.1, although the highly efficient transportation system is being considered as one of the most significant benefits regarding improving urban liveability in Hong Kong, we could observe that in the case of Kwun Tong, the continue condensation of the district is pressuring the local transportation system. From Ms Chan statement, we could observe that the impact of increasing density on the transportation system, as well as the impact on peoples’ psychological health.

In Burton’s research, she found the opposite, where higher densities appear to be positive for mental health. She noted that it is related to the importance of human contact and better commuting (2000). Dr Wong had also mentioned that this condition did appear in her research finding as well.

“I would say, for those who are more well-off, the physical living environment would be less influential regarding affecting their psychological distress level. Instead, some psycho-social factors would be of higher relevance, such as their living space is too big, they feel very lonely etc. However, for those who are less well-off, the physical attributes of their housing and living environment would be of higher influence.” Dr Wong discussed. We could observe that the role of high-density living environment would be dubious. When extreme density could create a negative psychological impact on people, people who live in low density may face some other psychological distress. Therefore, it is essential to discuss on the cultural acceptance of density and find out the most optimal density for a living environment to be ‘liveable’.

As there is not sufficient evidence on ‘physical health’, the hypothesis:

H2 Urban liveability can decrease due to (IV) High-density induced health and well-being impact of residents

, would be refined to

H2 Urban liveability can decrease due to (IV) High-density induced psychological health and well-being impact of residents.

CHAPTER 6 DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATION

In this chapter, the emerging issues which could be observed from the hypotheses testing process are going to be discussed. Comments from experts and the responses from the residents would be analysed to provide some initial discussion on these issues.

6.1 GREEN SPACE PROTECTION POLICY AND THE RISING HOUSING PRICE As mentioned previously, in the compact city theory, there is a general approach to contain the development area and to protect the environment. In Hong Kong, the approach appears in the form of the ‘Country Park Ordinance’, which was enacted in 1976 and covering 40% of Hong Kong total land area, protecting the countryside of the city. However, in fact, Hong Kong is facing a problem of land shortage for development given the continuously growing population. Land shortage for development was said to be a reason leading to ‘housing shortage’ and ‘decreasing living space’, as more people have to be housed in existing, developed the urban area. When the housing demand continues to grow, there is a further surge in the housing price. The ‘Country Park Ordinance’ therefore, had become a hot topic in Hong Kong society, on whether the country park should be released as a land source for development3. The conflict between nature protection and the impact of developing in a compact way exists.

Can we, consider the green space protection policy as a culprit of the rising housing price? If so, should the policy be modified to improving urban liveability, by increasing housing supply?

Dr Yiu and Ms Lai had elaborated their view, and both of them opposed to the idea of taking the country park as a land resource for development. Dr Yiu asked “We have chosen the path with high density and to protect the nature. However, now, if we are going back and suggest that we still have 76% of the undeveloped land, and we should develop those parts as well, then wouldn't it be meaningless for us to develop in such high-density if we are giving up to protect the nature?”. He added that country park is currently a public space, which every citizen could enjoy. However, with developing it into private property, the land which was initially accessible to all citizen, would be turned into something for the rich.

On the other hand, Ms Lai believed that there are other options for development, and the country park should not be considered as an ‘easy land bank’ just because the government already owns it.

From the previous discussion in section 5.1.1, we could observe that country park indeed have a role in enhancing urban liveability. It is a shared resource for the public. Although this policy could be related to the growing housing price, it also had a role in enhancing urban liveability. The development of such

3 Shirley Zhao, “Boosting land supply not just choosing between country park development and reclamation, concerned parties argue” South China Morning Post, 18 October 2017

green space could be, on the one hand, harming the urban liveability by reducing the publicly owned spaces, and on the other hand bringing, no real benefit to the public as the privatised land resource may not help in relieving the problem of the housing shortage.

6.2 INTENSIFICATION AND ITS IMPACT In Chapter 5 Case Studies Results, analysis of the case studies (Hong Kong and Kwun Tong) have been conducted to testify various hypotheses about the compact form of development. From the previous section, it is noted that although in general, H1 (II) and (III) are found to be true, from the Kwun Tong case study, the negative impact of continuous intensification on these local benefits could be observed. Kwun Tong is one of the districts with the highest density, as the district is undergoing urban renewal, further consolidation could be observed. In the following, the impact of the intensification on the said local benefits on urban liveability would be discussed.

H1: Urban liveability can benefit through

II. Affordable and highly efficient public transportation III. High accessibility to infrastructures and local services

6.2.1 IMPACT ON INFRASTRUCTURE As discussed in section 5.1.3, in general, we could observe that experts and local residents admit that they have high accessibility to infrastructures and local services, and this also contribute to the urban liveability of the city. However, mainly from the case study of Kwun Tong district, it is found that local residents started to complain about the ‘over-pressured’ condition of these local infrastructures. A continuous intensification of the city is found to be pressuring the local facilities and affecting the said local benefit.

While Mr Yuen described that the local infrastructure recently is “already over-pressured” and “overriding its carrying capacity”, local residents also have complaints on how they have to wait for a long time to use such local services or infrastructure. Ms Ip was suggesting that during rush hour, “too many people” could affect the convenience of services, she added, “I feel like, public housing estates are so densely packed with people... when serving that huge population, you should have more facilities”.

Therefore, it could be observed is that, although high accessibility could be observed, given the growing intensification, the local benefit brought by the high accessibility could be under threat.

6.2.2 IMPACT ON TRANSPORTATION In section 5.1.2, we have noted that the affordable and highly efficient public transportation system contributes to a large part of the liveability of a compact city. However, from the Kwun Tong case study, it could be observed that the increasing urban population was disrupting the efficiency of public transportation in the district. The continuous growing urban population in Kwun Tong was creating pressure on the transportation system, and the urban liveability could be disturbed.

Mr Yuen had suggested that one of the major problems in Kwun Tong would be the congestion problem. He mentioned “ Even inside Kwun Tong district, we have plenty of congestion problems all day. I won't say it is a very good transportation system inside the district owing to this reason.”. Ms Chan, also noted the same, saying that the transportation system in Kwun Tong is not very convenient. She described

“The problem is that the buses are often not on time. Well... It could be because of congestion. In holidays, it might cost me around 30 minutes to reach office. However, on weekdays, due to congestion, it cost me more than an hour to reach the office. It's even getting worst due to the development sites in Anderson Road. Recently, they have completed the first part of the development project, which includes a large public housing estate called An Tat Estate. There're almost 10 high-rises inside that housing estate. Upon the further completion of the second part of the development project, I believe it would only get worst. Owing to the new housing estate, a lot of buses which originally had their starting station in my area, have moved their starting point to An Tat Estate. When those buses reach our neighbourhood, in much time, they are already almost full. It's very difficult for us to get on the buses recently.”.

Her experiences pointed out the problem where the urban intensification happening in Kwun Tong is creating much pressure on the local transportation system. Although being compact facilitate a self- sustained and efficient public transportation system, the capacity of such system could be a concern. The public transportation system had a fixed capacity. However, the intensification process could at one point over-pressured the system and in turn, create a negative impact on urban liveability as well.

As what we have previously discussed, owing to the lack of land resources, it is a significant policy in Hong Kong to further consolidate and intensify the existing urban areas. However, from the Kwun Tong case study, we could note a challenge lying underneath this further consolidation, which is:

The consolidation could overload the capacity of current transportation system and infrastructures, harming the urban liveability of the city.

The key question here is: What is the limit for intensification so we can keep a good balance of local benefits? It is necessary for the city official to look for the ‘tipping point’ and maintain a good balance of benefits and intensification. In the case of Kwun Tong, the intensification process could be gone overboard by this time, and the impact of it is now surfacing.

6.3 HOUSING PROBLEM AND BALANCE The housing challenges in a compact city were discussed in section 5.2.1. We have found that it is true in the case study where housing problems, such as lack of living space and lack of affordable housing are undermining the urban liveability in Hong Kong. Some experts suggested that although the lack of living space or affordable housing is problematic, they are hardly something that could be changed easily. In other words, the housing problem is wicked. However, they have also mentioned that in Hong Kong, people have been using some other ways to balance the negative impact brought by the housing problems. Can a balance truly work?

Mr Ho suggested that “The living space would affect how and where you would have different activities. For example, when your flat is small, you could not invite your friends to your home. The good thing could be that owing to this reason, street shops would be more economically viable as people have to go out to socialize, for example, inside restaurants or bars.”. People tended to spend time outdoors to balance the problem brought by limited living space. However, when asking if he thinks that the impact of housing could be balanced out, he responded “Actually not. It is hard to be balanced. Small living space, for example, is forcing the student to go out to cafes or libraries... or even McDonald’s to study. The small living space is forcing people to solve the problem by consumption. They got to spend money to deal with these basic needs. However, Hong Kong people had got used to this way of living already.”. Mr Ho had suggested that people, although are trying to solve the problem by consumption, it may not be ‘truly solving the problem’.

Ms Lai also suggested that the housing problem could be one of the reasons why it is important to improve the public spaces condition. “So I mean, housing is always going to be a problem... I think that I would basically want to focus on improving the urban environment outside of the buildings, our streets, our public spaces, our parks, waterfront, all of these open spaces’... because people actually, when they don't have enough space at home, they spent a lot of their life outside and if you make that environment better for them, and I think that would also have an impact on the well-being.” She explained.

Ms Wong, also suggested that the neighbourhood environment is crucial as “Even if you do better interior design, it will not be much help as you are still being trapped in a tiny unit. Only when you can go out, enjoy a better neighbourhood environment, it could kind of help.”. Starting from the psychological health angle, Ms Wong also noted that people in Hong Kong is receiving lots of distress from the housing problem, and she suggested to start improving the neighbourhood environment as an alternative ‘balancing’ option.

“While the living space per person could hardly undergo any radical improvement, there are still plenty of things that you could work on, for example, social fabric, pollutions... They can work on more different aspects.” Mr Yuen, Living in Kwun Tong.

It could be observed that different experts have elaborated that the housing problem could be undermining the urban liveability of a compact city, and they believed that the problem is crucial. However, they mostly believe that the housing problem is hard to solve in the short term, and they try to start from something easier. Ms Wong mentioned “As for short-term, in Hong Kong, the housing policy could have barely any changes, and the environment would not have a great change. Considering the low possibility of a switch in housing policy, we are suggesting what we could do at the moment…However, can it solely solve the problem? I do not think so. Housing is still one of the biggest factor correlating to psychological distress. It is where you stay for long and where your family is living in.”. The wicked housing problem could hardly be solved as once. However, it is something that the government have to work on as its negative impact on urban liveability is very crucial and noticeable. In the case study, different experts have suggested measures from different angles. However, most of them pointed out that the impact could hardly be fully balanced.

6.5 CONCLUSION - HYPOTHESIS 3: THE TRADE-OFFS AND BALANCE

6.5.1 STRATEGIC TRADE-OFF IN HONG KONG To start with, the claim of ‘strategic trade-off’ had been reviewed in Chapter 2. Scholars, when researching on subjective evaluation of urban liveability, have suggested the concept of ‘strategic trade- off’, which is referring to the way residents have made their own decision on housing after weighting different local benefits as well as trade-offs of that location.

In general, we could note that in Hong Kong ‘strategic trade-off’ is greatly affected by the unaffordable housing price. The weighting process could not be balanced owing to the extremely high rental or housing price in Hong Kong. For example, when being asked on the limited living space, Dr Yiu had mentioned that “However, if you asked people if that is sufficient or not, they could hardly tell, as they would consider their affordability as well. As I could not afford to move or to live in a different district, therefore I have to be satisfied with what I have got. My requirements would be correlated to my affordability, people would consider this as well, so it is hard to say whether this, 9sq/m is sufficient or not, and it is a difficult question to answer.”.

This reflected that affordability could override the other factors, and affect the ‘strategic trade-off’ process of residents. Mrs Fong said, “In Hong Kong, it is like..."If only you can have a flat to live, it is already too good to be true." I sometimes do, think like that.”. Ms Ip also said “Well, having somewhere to stay in Hong Kong is already an achievement...Haha... It is hard to find somewhere to live.”. When finding a place to stay is already a challenge, people may not be able to afford somewhere which they found to be satisfactory and liveable. ‘Strategic trade-off’ in Hong Kong is probably a thing for the wealthy group of people who are free from the stress coming from the affordability of housing.

6.5.2 BENEFITS BROUGHT BY THE COMPACT URBAN FORM As discussed in section 6.2, although an affordable and efficient transportation system could be one of the major local benefits regarding liveability, the ever-growing urban density could create a negative impact on the transportation system. Intensification and consolidation in existing urban area are found to be one of the primary cause, affecting the urban liveability of the area negatively. While the further increase in urban density could hinder the benefits brought by compact urban form, it is important to identify the optimal point of density which could maintain a right balance of ‘density’ and ‘liveability’.

It is concluded that the trade-offs, such as housing unaffordability or lack of living space, are considered to be wicked and significantly harming the liveability of the city. It is found that, although the compactness had brought by specific benefits, these benefits are also under threat by a further increase in urban density. Although in theory, residents could choose how to balance the benefits and the trade- offs, owing to the housing unaffordability, this process is also not observed in the cases. Therefore, Hypothesis 3:

H3 The trade-offs caused by compactness and increasing density could be balanced by the benefits brought by the compact urban form, reaching a ‘liveable’ condition, is falsified in this case.

CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION A compact city with particular high density is the primary focus of this case study. Hong Kong is chosen as the case, which poses an urban form with high compactness and growing densities, for this study. Given the increasing debate in sustainable urban development, and the re-emerging discussion of compact development in China or other developing countries, it is important for us to look into the implementation of such theory and how would the ‘life of people’ in this environment be shaped, modified, and constructed. The life in extreme density and compactness could be in a very different form than in other countries. When Hong Kong is one of the city with the highest urban density, this study hopes to construct a detailed picture of the urban life of people in this urban environment and extend discussion on the urban liveability of such form. It has identified and highlighted some possible challenges lying in this way of development, suggesting some issues that governments from other cities may have to consider before moving straight into the ‘compact and sustainable’ ideal notion.

The overall aim of this research was to advance an understanding of urban liveability of a compact urban form. The specific research objectives were to:

1. Identify the hypothetical local benefits and trade-offs in urban liveability of a compact urban form from literature 2. Investigate on the local benefits and trade-offs of increasing urban densities and compactness with regards to urban liveability empirically 3. Based on the findings, critically reflect on the compact city conceptual debate in terms of urban liveability

This section will revisit the research objectives above, summarise the findings of this research work and offer conclusions based on the case study findings.

7.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

7.1.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 1: LITERATURE STATED LOCAL BENEFITS AND TRADE-OFFS The first research objective: To identify the hypothetical local benefits and trade-offs in urban liveability of a compact urban form from literature, was addressed in Chapter 2, Literature Review. A wide range of previous academic work on the compact city theory has been identified and reviewed. In the compact city debate, we could note that the discussion was limited in theoretical aspect back in the 2000s. Compact city, a concept that emerged back in the 1970s, has not been receiving lots of attention until the surging of the ‘sustainable development’ notion. Compact city, which was being ‘labelled’ as a sustainable way of development started to gain attention from the politicians as well as urbanists since the 2000s. Therefore, we could note that much work back in the 2000s are mainly theoretical, as there is yet to be many cases for empirical case studies. Therefore, the local benefits and trade-offs of this urban form on the urban life of people, are in general lacking in evidence. In Chapter 2, these previous work, including both theoretical and empirical, had been identified and reviewed. Thus, the claims on local benefits and trade-offs of the compact urban form in urban liveability had been identified. These hypotheses include:

Hypothesis 1: Urban liveability can benefit through I. Sufficient and accessible protected green spaces for the public

II. Affordable and less polluting public transportation

III. High accessibility to infrastructures and local services

Hypothesis 2: Urban liveability can decrease due to

I. Housing concerns, including lack of living space and lack of affordable housing

II. Failure in pollution reduction and intensified impact of noise pollution

III. In-city insufficient green or open space

IV. High-density induced health and well-being impact of residents

Hypothesis 3: The trade-offs caused by compactness and increasing density could be balanced by the benefits brought by the compact urban form, reaching a ‘liveable’ condition.

7.1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 2: CASE STUDIES OF LOCAL BENEFITS AND TRADE-OFFS Investigate on the local benefits and trade-offs of increasing urban densities and compactness with regards to urban liveability empirically

The literature identified the major benefits and concerns brought by building in a compact form, with increasing urban density: green space protection, efficient public transportation system, good accessibility to infrastructures, increasing housing concerns, the intensified impact of pollutions, in-city insufficient green space and heath impact on citizens. In practice, the picture is not so clear. In particular, to assess the validity of these claims, it is essential to include comments and evaluation from local experts and local citizens, looking into the issues from local urban living experiences.

As elaborated in the case study of Hong Kong and Kwun Tong, five of the hypotheses are validated, two are refined, and one is rejected.

Hypothesis Testing Result

H1(I) Urban liveability can benefit through sufficient and accessible protected green Valid spaces for the public

H1(II) Urban liveability can benefit through affordable and less polluting highly Refined efficient public transportation

H1 (III) Urban liveability can benefit through high accessibility to infrastructures and Valid local services H2 (I) Urban liveability can decrease due to housing concerns, including lack of living Valid space and lack of affordable housing

H2 (II) Urban liveability can decrease due to failure in pollution reduction and Valid intensified impact of noise pollution

H2 (III) Urban liveability can decrease due to in-city insufficient green or open space Valid

H2 (IV) Urban liveability can decrease due to high-density induced psychological Refined health and well-being impact of residents

H3: The trade-offs caused by compactness and increasing density could be balanced Rejected by the benefits brought by the compact urban form, reaching a ‘liveable’ condition.

Table 6 Hypotheses Testing Results

Experts comments (Hong Kong) and residents’ comments (Kwun Tong) are noted to not have significant differences regarding local benefits and trade-offs. In general, the two case studies complement each other, while Kwun Tong case study provides a more in-depth insight into the further urban intensification and its impact on urban liveability.

7.1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 3: REFLECT ON THE CONCEPTUAL DEBATE Concerning the third research objective: Based on the findings, critically reflect on the compact city conceptual debate in terms of urban liveability, results and concepts have been discussed in Chapter 6 Discussion and implication.

To sum up, the key reflection on the compact city conceptual debate concerns on the inexplicit linkage of different benefits and trade-offs. In previous researches on ‘compact city’, as noted in the literature review chapter, researchers mainly focused on one to few particular benefits or trade-offs. However, owing to this nature, the connections underneath different benefits and trade-offs could remain unclear. In this research, by conducting a case study and look into different local benefits and trade- offs at the same time, some linkage between them are being discovered.

• Green space protection policy could be related to the outcome of lack of affordable housing • However, green space protection is essential as it could act as a compensation for the trade- off of lack of living space • Intensification process could negatively affect the existing local benefits brought by compact development, a ‘tipping point’ is necessary to be identified to keep a right balance of local benefits and trade-offs, to maintain a good urban liveability • Housing problem, including lack of affordable housing and living space, is a wicked problem, and the impact of it is extensive.

It is essential to review on the inter-correlation between different trade-offs and benefits in future research on the ‘compact city’ research.

7.2 INSIGHTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH When Hong Kong was being rated as liveable city, when every time the news coverage stating that Hong Kong is being ranked high in competitiveness ranking, liveability ranking, strong economy ranking such and such, it always provoked a question in my mind, ‘Liveable for WHOM?’.

Liveable to me is a very subjective concept, and whether a city is liveable or not, should be ranked by the residents themselves. When the extreme density of Hong Kong was growing still, when there are increasing people living in extreme condition in Hong Kong, the global rankings of ‘liveable city’ was not strong enough to convince me that the city is liveable. This research is an exploratory attempt of a Hong Kong citizen to try to explore the notion of the liveable high-density compact city from a bottom-up angle. It is also the first attempt to explore the externalities of extreme density on peoples’ lives from their angle. When governments thought that liveable means an economically viable city, no one had ever asked the residents if it is the case for them. When the extreme urban density is growing to an ultimate extreme, but people had no option to choose where to live, the liveability of the city should be put into question.

The International community praising the high-density compact mode to be a sustainable solution for the rapidly growing population and environmental degradation, but no answer was found in terms of what density would be optimal to make the community benefits from the good transportation and convenience brought by compactness, while the same time balance out the negative externalities brought by extreme density. While no standard of density was being set, the growing density and housing problems in Hong Kong could be a warning to the cities that plan to develop in similar direction.

Especially when a significant percentage of population remains to be poor and could hardly afford to buy the chance of ‘choosing where to live’, when balancing of options doesn’t exist for this group of people, when these people could never choose the environment they would like to live in, it is exploiting the group of people of no power, and creating a problem of social unjust.

What makes a high-density compact city liveable is yet to be clear, in this research, we have observed that some needs could not be compensated by other benefits. The ‘tipping point’ of balance has to be identified to prevent the overriding impact of externalities on people’s living condition. When objectively it is hardly possible, this research had explored the possibility to start from a bottom-up perspective to seek an optimal state of high-density city to benefit the most, as well as highlighting the possibility of evaluating urban liveability from ‘My very own urban living experience’ of the residents themselves. Further research on the optimal balance, as well as the impact of further intensification, would be highly essential on the way to further improve the ‘compact urban form’.

Besides, it is important to note that the case study of Hong Kong has limited power in explaining cases in another context. Some scholars have suggested that Chinese, in general, are more adaptive to higher density environment owing to the tradition of Chinese to live in higher density environment. Therefore, this research result could have limited power to explain the phenomenon in the west or cities with very different context. In this research, we could yet to identify how important are these contextual or cultural factors owing to limited resources and space. However, future research in this aspect would be highly essential.

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APPENDIXES

APPENDIX A TEMPLATE OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

(I) INTEGRATED/HOUSING 1. How would you define ‘liveable environment’? 2. Do you think Hong Kong is liveable according to your definition? 3. What kind of benefits did the high density compact development of Hong Kong have brought to residents? 4. What about the biggest shortcoming? 5. Here is a list of benefits and problems found in compact development in other countries

Introducing more green area inside cities

Providing better access to facilities (public facilities, institutional facilities, businesses, public space etc.)

Providing better transportation for all

Decreasing air pollution owing to reduced car dependency

Residents are likely to living further away from the nearest area of green space

Less domestic living space

Lack of affordable housing

Increased Crime Level

Higher cost of living

Prominent traffic congestion

Prominent noise pollution

Health Impact

Well-being is negatively affected

I. Do you think these benefits/problems also exist in Hong Kong? Which challenge you found to have the biggest impact on Hong Kong’s liveability? II. Besides, from the context of Hong Kong, do you think the benefits could balance out the negative impact brought by the high density compact development, making Hong Kong a liveable city?

6. Hong Kong indeed has a very unique housing environment, do you find the physical features, which means the high-rise, high density, small units housing environment, a liveable one? 7. In terms of public housing, do you think a 3-person unit with 21-30 sq/m a size which is acceptable and meeting the basic need of people? 8. Do you find the small domestic living space a problem? 9. Hong Kong government had mentioned in Hong Kong 2030+ long term strategy proposal that they would like to continue the high density compact development strategy, consolidation of urban area is expecting to rise continuously, the higher density may create higher pressure on the transportation system and facilities. Do you think this policy would have further impact on urban liveability? 10. What’s your opinion on the current urban density of Hong Kong, fair or too high? 11. You are also a local resident living in Hong Kong, all in all, do you find Hong Kong a liveable city? 12. In view of the Government goal of making Hong Kong liveable, which aspect do you find to have the highest importance and urgency for improvement? 13. There are increasing number of cities that are following this track of development, do you think this is a urban form that should be further promoted?

(II) INTERVIEW FOR TRANSPORTATION 1. One key element of compact development is the promotion of affordable and accessible public transportation, how would you evaluate the transportation in Hong Kong in terms of affordability, efficiency and social equity? 2. It is believed that the reliance on a collective form of transportation would enhance urban liveability in terms of reducing pollution on road, can we observe this benefit in Hong Kong? 3. What’s your opinion on transportation and its relation to urban liveability? In what way do the transportation in Hong Kong enhance urban liveability and in what way it hinders urban liveability? 4. As in Hong Kong, there is TOD development, residential housing was usually placed near transportation hubs, do you think noise pollution caused by transportation, including road traffics and trains, could have significant impact on urban liveability? 5. Do you think this effect is inevitable when you have chosen to develop in a compact way? 6. Do you think the public transportation strategy brought more benefits than harm in urban liveability? 7. Hong Kong government had mentioned in Hong Kong 2030+ long term strategy proposal that they would like to continue the high density compact development strategy, consolidation of urban area is expecting to rise continuously, the higher density may create higher pressure on the transportation system and facilities. Do you think this policy would have further impact on urban liveability? 8. What’s your opinion on the current urban density of Hong Kong (27,330person/km) , from a transportation angle, do you think it’s fair or too high? 9. Can the current transportation support further increase in urban density? 10. Do you think there would be a saturation point of urban density in which our public transportation system could support? (capacity, efficiency, affordability) 11. There are increasing number of cities that are following this track of development, do you think this is an urban form that should be further promoted?

(III) INTERVIEW FOR HEALTH WELLBEING 1. In the compact city development debate, plenty of scholars have identified that high-density development strategy would induce health and well-being impact of residents, I knew that you had researched living environment and psychological distress in Hong Kong, would you mind to describe a bit of the result? 2. Do you think density has an impact on the perceived physical environment quality and mental distress? 3. So do you think the statement of ‘high-density environment induced health and well-being impact of residents’ a true one as observed in Hong Kong? 4. What’s the biggest problem regarding physical environment concerning psychological impact in Hong Kong? (Housing size, neighbourhood, density, sunlight factor..or?) 5. In what way the urban environment in Hong Kong could be improved to relieve the psychological distress of residents in Hong Kong? 6. Hong Kong government had mentioned in Hong Kong 2030+ long-term strategy proposal that they would like to continue the high-density compact development strategy, consolidation of the urban area is expecting to rise continuously. Do you think there would be an impact on peoples’ well-being/ psychological distress? Do you have any observation on that? 7. What’s your opinion on the current urban density of Hong Kong, fair or too high? 8. Given the Government goal of making Hong Kong liveable, do you think an improvement in the urban environment in concern with the psychological health of citizens urgently need improvement? In what way can we achieve that? 9. How would you comment on the planning and urban design policies in regards to psychological distress on citizens? What aspect of these policies should be improved? 10. There is an increasing number of cities that are following this track of development, do you think this is an urban form that should be further promoted?

(IV) INTERVIEW FOR COMMUNITY EXPERTS Local experiences on

1. Green space (Country park) + Local community green space

• Are there sufficient green spaces within Kwun Tong districts? • How would you evaluate the quality of these green spaces/parks? • What could be improved? • Do public usually spend time in these green spaces? Do they like it here? • I have observed that there are not much people with younger age would spend time in the parks, what would be the reason behind that? • Do you think the green spaces are meeting the needs of Kwun Tong Residents?

2. Transportation (Affordability, efficiency, comfort)

• Do you find the transportation services efficient & affordable? • Do you think the public transportation system in Kwun Tong is in good condition? What would be the major problem currently in the transportation system in Kwun Tong district from the perspective of residents? In what way the transportation could be improved? • Do all residents have equal access to public transportation? Are there any group of residents in Kwun Tong have more problem in terms of public transportation? • I have observed that there are long queues on streets waiting for transportation, do you think that the public transportation is inefficient? Or the capacity of the transportation is overloading? • Do you expect any impact on transportation of the district upon urban renewal in central kwun tong and further completion of residential housing estates across the district? • Kwun Tong urban renewal proposal, proposing 2000 more residential units in the centre and business centre (4 buildings with 42-48 floors), and is planning to build a huge underground transportation hub (160,000 km2) with a elevated walkways and public spaces, what do you think about the design? • Some says that the street life of kwuntong would be severely affected by the urban renewal project which was one vibrant what do you think?

3. Social Infrastructure (sufficient??) & Local services

• Social infrastructure, such as medical facilities, schools, offices, or government institutions, are they sufficient and accessible? • Do you think the social infrastructures inside this district are highly utilized? Are there anything that you wish to have in this district? • How would you describe the businesses and convenience living in this district in terms of satisfying daily needs? • Will you expect that the urban renewal may lead to any potential change in the business, convenience in this district in terms of satisfying local residents’ daily needs?

4. Housing

• How would you describe the housing condition in Kwun Tong? • Do you think residents in general are satisfied with the housing condition in Kwun Tong? In terms of size and affordability? • A lot of residents in Kwun Tong are living in old public housing, have you heard any of their comments/ complaints on current housing condition? What kind of improvement you think is urgently needed? • As for affordability, is the rent in Kwun Tong district in general affordable? Have the rent grow a lot in the city centre in face of upcoming urban renewal? • How about housing price, in terms of buying a flat in this district? • Living Space is one of the problem of high density development, do you think current residents in Kwun Tong district have a sufficient amount of private living space? Why or why not?

5. Pollution

• Hows the light pollution problem in Kwun Tong • Hows the noise pollution problem in Kwun Tong

6. Health and well-being

• Can you observe any impact of the physical environment on health and well-being of residents living in this district? Do you think the dense, compact environment have an impact on residents’ health and well-being? • This is a very subtle impact, have you heard of any cases which related to mental distress caused by the traffic /crowded environment/ noise/ pollution or housing quality? • If it’s hard to generalize, how about describe it from your own perspective? Do you find the environment in this district pleasurable to stay or in the opposite might cause you any mental distress? What do you find to be the most stressful to live in this district and wish to be improved as soon as possible?

7. Planning, design

• Do you think the Kwun Tong urban planning is meeting peoples’ need? How about the urban renewal plan? • Do you have any comments on how the government plan or design the district? • Do you think residents’ opinion is being heard in the planning process? • What kind of improvement do you think is necessary in terms of planning and design in the district? • Do you think the urban renewal plan is improving the liveability of the district? In what way it does and in what way it does not?

8. Overall Density & Liveability Questions/ranking

• Do you think the population density is optimal in Kwun Tong? Or do you find it overpopulated? • The urban renewal project, as well as plans, shows that they are planning to build more high- rise and residential buildings in the district, do you think the current infrastructure could support this further development? • Do you have any concern on the urban renewal project in terms of urban liveability? • Since the urban regeneration project have started, are there any impact on residents’ daily life?

• Overall, how would you evaluate the living environment here in Kwun Tong, is it liveable or not liveable from your viewpoint?

• From your experience, which area should the government start to work on in order to make Kwun Tong more liveable?

• Do you think that (aspect mentioned above) could be solved or compensate by providing better transportation or facilities in the district? Instead of directly addressing that problem?

(V) INTERVIEW FOR LOCAL RESIDENTS 1. Green space (Country park) + Local community green space

• Are there sufficient green spaces within Kwun Tong districts? • How would you evaluate the quality of these green spaces/parks? • Do you usually spend time in these green spaces? Do you like it here?

2. Transportation (Affordability, efficiency, comfort)

• Do you find the transportation services efficient & affordable? • Do you think the public transportation system in Kwun Tong is in good condition? • What would be the major problem currently in the transportation system in Kwun Tong district from the perspective of residents? • In what way the transportation could be improved? • I have observed that there are long queues on streets waiting for transportation, do you think that the public transportation is inefficient? Or the capacity of the transportation is overloading? • Do you expect any impact/benefits on transportation of the district upon urban renewal in central kwun tong and further completion of residential housing estates across the district?

4. Social infrastructure

• Social infrastructure, such as medical facilities, schools, offices, or government institutions, are they sufficient and accessible? • Do you think the social infrastructures inside this district are highly utilized? Are there anything that you wish to have in this district? • How would you describe the businesses and convenience living in this district in terms of satisfying daily needs? • Will you expect that the urban renewal may lead to any potential change in the business, convenience in this district in terms of satisfying your daily needs?

5. Housing

• How would you describe the housing condition in Kwun Tong? • Are you satisfied with your housing condition in Kwun Tong? In terms of size and affordability? • Living Space is one of the problem of high density development, are you satisfy with the amount of private living space that your have? Why or why not?

6. Pollution

• Have you experienced the light pollution problem in Kwun Tong • Have you experienced the noise pollution problem in Kwun Tong

7. Health and well-being

• Do you find the environment in this district pleasurable to stay or in the opposite might cause you any mental distress? What do you find to be the most stressful to live in this district and wish to be improved as soon as possible?

8. Planning, design

• Do you think the Kwun Tong urban planning is meeting your need? How about the urban renewal plan? • What kind of improvement do you think is necessary in terms of planning and design in the district? • Do you think the urban renewal plan is improving the liveability of the district? In what way it does and in what way it does not?

10. Overall Density & Liveability Questions

• Do you know that Kwun Tong is the district with highest population density? What’s your personal experience with density here?

• Since the urban regeneration project have started, are there any impact on your daily life?

• What does it mean to be ‘liveable’ from your viewpoint? Can you define the term?

• Overall, how would you evaluate the living environment here in Kwun Tong, is it liveable or not liveable from your viewpoint?

• From your experience, which area should the government start to work on in order to make Kwun Tong more liveable?

APPENDIX B EXPERTS INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS

(I) TRANSCRIPT - MR ALFRED HO (URBAN RESEARCHER)

Name: Mr Alfred Ho

Place of the Interview: Coffee shop near interviewee's office

Duration of the interview: 1 Hour 50 Minutes

Interviewer: Ka Sik Tong

Profession of the interviewee: Architecture & Independent Researcher in Hong Kong

Professional field: Architecture

Previous research/projects related to this interview: Maintaining facebook page: Hong Kong Living Space, in which his research outcome on various topic related to Hong Kong's urban living quality would be published. His research focus is on Hong Kong's housing form, living space and housing price.

Interviewer: Good morning. Thank you so much for accepting my interview request. Would you mind to introduce what is your current research focus now?

Mr Ho: Actually I am currently working at an architectural firm, after finishing my degree at Hong Kong University and my master degree in the Netherlands, I have taken up personal time to conduct urban studies research. I believe that the knowledgeable parties should act as the medium to connect the public and the professional field and allowing the public to participate and improve our current development process. In which, that is yet to happen in Hong Kong. For example, Kowloon West Cultural district development, public spaces, conservation issues, although they are now gaining more and more attention in Hong Kong, in general, the public would have difficulties in terms of participating in the discussion. This is because the public is lacking in the professional knowledge needed and the professionals have not shared their knowledge with the public. So I am currently working on urban studies in order to educate and populate this kind of knowledge.

Interviewer: Thank you so much. So, the first question would be, how would you define ‘liveable environment’?

Mr Ho: Well, I believe that liveable or not depends on those who lived in the region, it depends on their expectations. In addition to physical constraints and requirements...for example, the easiest part to measure could be the physical space, some hardware... As for expectations, that would evolve alongside with time, advancing development stages of the city so and so, so it would be hard to define. You have to include some crucial parameters for measuring such expectations, this would be different for every single individual. Some research on sustainability or on the environment would include certain physical factors in their measurement, such as day-light factor, comfort level, urban heat and etc. But I believe that peoples' expectation would be a better way to generalize or represent liveability. The expectation could be divided into two main parts, 'global' and 'local', a lot of criteria that you have stated in your questions are in general referencing to the 'global' or 'academia' way of measurement. As in Hong Kong, it could be pretty difficult to measure as we have a pretty unique form which could be vastly different from that of the U.S. or the European Context, for example, car dependency, we don't really have a history of car dependency and it's not solely why we are developing in that way. We could hardly own a car, right? So, it is highly necessary to include the local perspective in your research. The most difficult part for you to analyse Hong Kong would be that we have some very unique local or regional factors, which is affecting the urban form of it. Not only that we are an outcome under influence of both Chinese culture and Western culture, but as well, we are unique in a sense. Therefore, I believe it is necessary to include both local expectations and global evaluation on liveability when measuring the liveability of Hong Kong. Probably you could conduct some interviews with local people so as to include such aspect as well? So, to conclude, I think it is necessary to inspect on the local peoples' expectation in this term, in addition with the assessment on some physical factors such as do this place meeting the basic needs of people? Such as security, health, spatial needs or such.

Interviewer: It is very interesting to hear you talking about 'expectations'...

Mr Ho: Well, I believe that the research in the field of 'liveability' rarely covers how people could have different expectations on 'urban liveability'. People from different economic status would have different expectations on 'liveable', for sure. For example, for the richer group of people, they might found 'clubhouse' inside the estate an important factor when they consider where to be liveable, but for many, it may not be an important factor. Different groups would have different expectations.

Interviewer: True, and expectations would also be related to your freedom to choose, wouldn't it?

Mr Ho: Well, yea. It could also be the reverse. You may have that expectation but in fact you could not choose.

Interviewer: Then, do you think Hong Kong is liveable according to your definition?

Mr Ho: Actually, Um... aside from housing issues, for example, the housing price remains to be high and the housing area remained to be very small, Um... other aspects do not seem to have big problems, well... But, they are not improving as well, Um... they are not changing or improving according to the economic development of Hong Kong. I would say, people are expecting more nowadays, but what Hong Kong provide remained to stuck at 1950s level, while housing is an aspect where it's even getting worst. So, in common, people would focus on the decreasing of physical spaces or individual housing area in Hong Kong. While in terms of expectation, it is highly related to the political situation as well. In terms of liveability of Hong Kong, I would say, in recent years, the housing would be the biggest problem, in particular, the housing price and area problem is largely affecting the liveability of Hong Kong.

Interviewer: Do you think this is related to the urban planning policy in Hong Kong?

Mr Ho: There are plenty of analytics stating that the reason behind the phenomenon of growing numbers in small-size housing would be tracing back to 2010, 2011, where the government had added a land lease requirement stating that the developer had to include more housing units in the same size of land. Well, when you have to provide more housing units in the same size of land, of course, the housing area would decrease inevitably. On the other hand, the small unit size is also related to the housing price, lower housing price would be easier to apply for a mortgage, it would make the initial payment less amount to that of larger flats and it's easier for people to pay that. Therefore, it is related to the economic status of people, as well as the land policy of Hong Kong. Well, as for planning policy, it's relation to the living environment and the community relationship would be larger than that of housing size/ price. From the 1980s, we have developed an urban planning scheme, which we have been using until now, however, that scheme doesn't change over time. The government department each responsible for the different urban development process and the lack of coordination is also hindering the urban liveability in general. For example, for new towns, the government are now sticking on with the mindset where we could keep on building new towns to solve the current housing problems. Replicating the old model of new towns, however, in fact, the whole social situation in Hong Kong is very different from the past. The population structure is very different. For example, in the 1970s-80s we have built a lot of new towns, to name a few, Tai Po, Tsuen Wan, or Sha Tin. These new towns often include industrial towns. In the past, people who lived in these new towns were working in the same district, usually inside the industrial towns. Back then, they enjoyed the community with the district, seldom needs to travel here and there. However, nowadays, we no longer have industries. So job could be a problem in current new town planning. As previously, in the past, new town development is highly related to the industrial development, for example, in the 1950s, Kwun Tong was planned as a satellite town, by that time, industry was still one of the major economic pillars of Hong Kong, so the vast population was still working for industries. This planning background had led to the current planning practices of new towns, which the government, until now, believed to be useful. However, the improvement of our society is being ignored, and their planning practices had not changed since then. This is leading to the outcome that the current new towns are not meeting current new needs of people. And this would definitely affect the urban liveability here in Hong Kong. They have not considered some new factors which would make the new towns a better environment to live. Okay, for example, the third generation of new towns, such as Tin Shui Wai, Tseung Kwan O, or Tung Chung. Do you know why Tin Shui Wai was giving such a bad impression in general while Tseung Kwan O is relatively fine? While they are both third generations?

As observed by the social workers, the problem is originated from the population structure and income level in Tin Shui Wai. When you are rich, you definitely would have no problem living in Tin Shui Wai. In Hong Kong, in general when you're rich, then you would be fine. When the income level in Tseung Kwan O is relatively higher than the other two districts, and this is making one of the major differences. Besides, the population structure of the community is also important. In Tin Shui Wai or Tung Chung, they have a larger composition of the lower class population, however, they did not plan the facilities in the district accordingly. That's why the local residents of Tung Chung is complaining about the lack of wet markets inside the district. When you are rich, you do not need wet markets, right? So the point here is their failure in providing facilities and urban environment which match the needs of the local population. They failed to consider that. The population structure and income level of the district is actually directly related to the housing types inside the district. When the planning in Hong Kong failed to consider many of these factors.

As for the hardware... Simply by urban planning, it is not possible to make a place liveable. In Tin Shui Wai, there's a lot of spaces, well according to our planning guidelines, it is a perfectly fine district. They have provided all the facilities that from a data-wise analysis, is perfect. However, it turns out to not be the case. (Interviewer: So, what would be a better planning system?) Well... 'people-centric' I would say. 'People-centric' or 'Bottom-up', is very important concepts. Tin Shui Wai is one of the typical examples of not planning from a 'people-centric' way. In Tin Shui Wai, nothing is happening on street... From one spot to another, it's boring. The walking experience is not good. It is something that is hard to be done from top-down, as we do not have a series of indicators telling you how to do so. The current planning guidelines in Hong Kong is not telling you how to achieve these. How to compile an index from our local perspective is the key, for now, I believe. In Europe, the walking experience is good and fun. Why? Simply because you could have a lot of choices. You can choose where to go, and each choice would lead to different outcomes. Different activities and events are happening on streets. But in Tin Shui Wai, the planning do it all. They planned all the spot to spot route and on that route, there's nothing that could happen. Tseung Kwan O, on the other hand, is designed to be all connected by the footbridges. It is convenient, but it doesn't change the fact that they are a spot to spot design. In Hong Kong, Sai Wan is a good example of a vibrant street experience.

Interviewer: Do you think this is also related to peoples' own experiences in life?

Mr Ho: Well... Different social classes would have different expectations on the liveable environment. While people in different stages of life may also have very different expectations. For example, for the older generation, they might not prefer living in the high-rise, as they hold the belief where people should be attached to the ground. But the current people no longer think the same. Living on the 30th floor may not be a commonly acceptable ideal living environment. So I would say, people from different generation may have different interpretations of 'liveable environment'. When you are asking the elderly, they might not recognize that there could be some more choices in their living environment. It is highly related to their mindset and own living experiences. I have also observed that the older generation may tend to accept and adapt instead of expecting changes. They believed that what is given is already good enough. It is highly related to their own personal history and experiences.

Interviewer: What kind of benefits did the high-density compact development of Hong Kong have brought to residents?

Mr Ho: High-density development mode, well... With more population, the transportation system and facilities could be built in a more compact way and so it would be more convenient. In a high-density city, the exciting point is that you can have a lot of variety. A lot of activities could be done. The life would be much more vibrant than that of living in a small town.

Interviewer: What about the biggest shortcoming?

Mr Ho: In common... the biggest shortcoming would be in physical, for example, day-light factor or ventilation problem. As this living mode is not a particularly common one, well there are a bit more cases in Asia, but not in Europe or America. So the shortcomings were not particularly well discussed. TOD in Hong Kong... This development mode would definitely lead to a monolithic... a large scale of development. For example, in Union Square, those development sites in West Kowloon, in the Elements. That would lead to some big problems. Of course, not every TOD development would end up to looks like the Elements, but in a lot of times, they would end up like that. The main problem here is that these kinds of development would turn out to be lack of diversity. For example, the shops would be chain stores and they would usually be rented by those who are richer. In comparison, in old districts, one of the keys is about the local shops and its diversity. Local people could open up their shops or businesses easily without many constraints. Imagine, if where you live to allow you to do something easily,... Um... that would also be related to your liveability expectation. If you like to sell cakes, it would be much easier for you to open up your business in the old districts than in those new developments. The design of the large-scale development would also be very similar. In terms of visuality and variety, it would be very limited. When a large piece of land with 20 lots is designed by a 20 of different developers, it would result in a very different urban form. It would be much easier for people to participate and join the design. However, when you combine 20 lots into one and give it to one large developer to develop the land, it would be less diversified and less flexible. The activities planned would be generic and they could barely plan when considering the special points of the districts. For example, they would plan for a lot of large-scale shopping malls, which we could observe from the existing examples nowadays. In order to ensure the rental income and successfulness of the plan, they usually plan high-end shopping malls, which was found to be a successful strategy in many previous cases. To play safe, commercially, the outcome urban form turns out to be very plain and lack of variety. When you are designing for 1000 persons, you could do something much more interesting and fun. However, when you are designing on such a large scale, you have to consider for much more different factors. These could all be very important considerations, for example, you have to consider for elderly, disabled people, children... so and so, so the outcome would turn out to be playing safe, just like what the government is doing now. What I am saying is that the TOD development nowadays in Hong Kong is leading to the trend that development is tended to be on a large scale. Therefore, the design is not 'close to human' and not diversified. The design would be mainstream, lack of innovations, so as to match the need for the majority.

Other than this problem, it is that in this design trend, we tend to fit in everyone into some generic image of people, for example, 1000 people, should have a 1000 different needs right? If it is developed by different developers, we might be able to fulfil 600 needs. If we develop on a large scale, we might only be able to satisfy 100 needs. So we are trying to fit everyone in these 100 needs. When these people were being forced to live in the environment like this, they would try to get adapted to it and for long, they would no longer know if there's some other possibility. They would be shaped to live with the '100 needs set'. They might think that the 100 needs were being satisfied and that means the district is liveable. It doesn't mean that TOD has to be developed like this though. But at the current stage, it appears to be like this. I mean, your design would always be constrained by the time and trend. When New Towns are being planned at once, it is unavoidable to end up in the similar style, and lack of diversity.

Interviewer: So do you think that this urban form, which is composed of high-rise and large scale business mall, is a liveable form?

Mr Ho: Well, I think we should try to build in a disperse way instead of building in a more concentrated way. If you are going to build 1,000,000 sq meter of land, if you try to build in 18 districts, and build some in each district, it would be better than building one whole new town in one plan. As when you build in a lot of different districts, the diversification would happen naturally. You can use the diversity inside each district to help to achieve the diversification in different locations.

Interviewer: Then, do you find the current density in Hong Kong a liveable one?

Mr Ho: The small living space is not necessarily correlated to the density. The development of such large-scale lots, it would be much easier for them to manage. One of the problems in urban planning in Hong Kong is that they are trying to make everything easy for them to manage and administer. They made it easy for you to build, administer and plan. As for the liveability of this urban form, high urban density... For example, a lot of Chinese cities are also going to develop in such a form, however, I am not sure if they actually know what they want from this urban form. In Hong Kong, it is the same, the government believed that the previous new town development mode is a good one and it's trying to copy the whole development in different locations. However, turns out that what is good has not been successfully copied. Something... is not about the physical form, that's why a replication may not be able to copy and achieve what you're expecting. So, I would start to ask, what is indeed good.

Interviewer: So you think that the compact city or high density is not necessarily the cause of the problem in Hong Kong?

Mr Ho: Well... High density is allowing a wide-range of possibilities. In Hong Kong, owing to the history and a lot of different factors, we have formulated a unique developing mode by ourselves. But it is not easy to copy this kind of development form...

Interviewer: So what do you think would be the biggest problem in this development mode?

Mr Ho: It overly emphasizes on efficiency. As it is something that could be calculated, it is something that could be justified. Just now when we talked about experiences or emotions, those are something that is hard to quantify or justify by rations. This is related to our planning approach as well, where we are approaching planning from the rational angle, instead of starting from the emotional angle.

Interviewer: Hong Kong government had mentioned in Hong Kong 2030+ long-term strategy proposal that they would like to continue the high-density compact development strategy, consolidation of the urban area is expecting to rise continuously, the higher density may create higher pressure on the transportation system and facilities. Which area, do you believe to have the highest urgency for improvement?

Mr Ho: I think the government had to set up an effective mechanism to deal with the emotional needs of people, as well as their expectations. In terms of efficiency, Hong Kong is doing quite well. Our cities who are following our developing mode, a lot of them are appreciating the efficiency of this city and they would like to bring that to their cities as well. However, the urban form and the efficiency itself is not something that could be easily copied. These are all connected to the local culture, memories and experiences of the city. Therefore, it could be hard for other cities to copy this mode of development. The efficiency is pretty 'Hong Kong'. However, the problem here is that the high efficiency is also brought residents a lot of pressure and stress. You can imagine that, if everyone is overly rational and only looking for efficiency, the pressure level here would be high. It could be bad for people's health and well-being. So if you ask me where to improve, I would say... The current planning system in Hong Kong is overly tilted towards being rational and efficiency, however, the emotional aspect of the local expectations were being ignored. This is a huge problem. However, the even worst thing here is that people in this city do not really know how they should deal with such problem. There are not a lot of cities out there facing the same problem.

On the other hand, the city had already developed to the stage where everything, including regulations, planning and design processes, is already very mature. That is reducing the flexibility... The grey area or leeways in development are gone. In the past, there's a lot of people living in business-residential mixed-use housing. Back then, it was because of the sudden influx of new migrants, and they need to reside as well as to work. Therefore, it led to the emerging new housing form - the business-residential mixed-use. These areas used to be very flexible... Well... it was also because of the less-restriction in planning back in those days. In the past, development could be done with much more flexibility. For example, living space. In the past, if you are living in Tang Lou, you have plenty of flexibility and you could modify your living environment for a lot. For example, you could modify your windows size. However, in newer high-rise housing, you could no longer do the same. A lot of restrictions have been posed. You can say that this approach is good for management, however, what I want to say here is that... Because we have reached a very mature state, the leeway or grey area, which allows us to have more flexibility, were no longer there. However, these leeway are very important as they could provide the flexibility for people to deal with their own needs, including emotional needs.

Interviewer: Then, how can we deal with this problem? Is it about the relaxation of existing regulations?

Mr Ho: When you take a look at all those TOD development sites, you could observe the same problem happening. The TOD development mode was already highly mature. They believed that this development model is very efficient, and profitable. That's why they chose to copy this mode everywhere. How to solve the problem... I would say the way to solve the above-mentioned problem is the relaxation in management. You have to manage with a sense of flexibility. Giving one more example, in the past, people can do something with their balcony, for example, some may plant, some may hang their clothes out there. In fact, this is a kind of self-projection. It is related to your identity. How you express yourself... And it's also related to the emotional needs of people. By modifying your living environment, you can raise a sense of identity. If you ask people directly, they could hardly tell the importance of such thing. This was happening in a subconscious way. However, nowadays, we have a very mature system in terms of development. As I have mentioned above, they could hardly address everyone's personal needs in such a large scale development. However, in order to easy manage the large-scale development, a lot of rules and regulations are being imposed as well. The leeway no longer exist. Although from a rational point of view, these rules and regulations may not be bad, the vanishing of the grey area and leeway is necessary to exist. When your society no longer allow... Well in the context of western countries, their society is very different from ours. They have a more open-minded government, while Hong Kong government is adopting the 'parental-governance'. We have very strict planning and building regulations, that made people try to satisfy their needs by using the grey areas or leeway existing in our legal system. However, now, when we no longer have such grey area in our legal system, you just don't feel right anymore. Interviewer: In terms of public housing, do you think a 3-person unit with 21-30 sq./m a size which is acceptable and meeting the basic need of people?

Mr Ho: In general, it's insufficient. Well, but of course, it is only for those who are poor. For the rich, they have more funds to buy enough space for themselves. Well... as for the public housing, it is designed to act as a basic social security. It was not supposed to be built to be good. It might also affect the private housing market. Instead of focusing on the area, I would like to suggest to focus on the design. In Hong Kong, there's a pretty common misconception that we believe that we have to pay a lot for a better or good design. However, in fact this does not have to be true. Public housing... you might have the perception that it is in a lower class than private housing or HOS housing, however, this does not have to be true. You do not have to build public housing in a worst design. A lot believe that public housing, owing to its social security nature, should not be built in better shape than private one. However, I don't think that we should hold this believe. On the other hand, good one does not necessarily means that you have to be expensive. People have a lot of misconception on the word 'design'. It could be cheap but good. The easiest way to deal with the problem would be from management side. For example, in Tin Shui Wai, although they have a lot of open spaces, due to the wide range of regulations, they could not really do what they want to do inside those spaces. For example, they might want to hang their clothes, or salinizing food. However, the park manager would not allow them to conduct such activities. The easiest and quickest way to change would be from the management part. As for design, it is also easier to approach. Currently people only know 'design' on the surface... but do it well would definitely help with liveability.

Interviewer:You are also a local resident living in Hong Kong, all in all, do you find Hong Kong a liveable city?

Mr Ho: Not really...Hmmm...Well...In my own flat, a lot of them is designed to be 'one-sided', which means there would be only one window in your living room. In that sense, the air ventilation is not good. A lot of times I have to rely on airconditioning. This is also a part of 'design' which people should pay attention to. The 'one-sided' design could allow more units to be built.

Interviewer: Do you find the small domestic living space a problem?

Mr Ho: Of course. Yea... It's definitely a problem. The living space would affect how and where you would have different activities. For example, when your flat is small, you could not really invite your friends to your home. The good thing could be that owing to this reason, street shop would be more economically viable as people have to go out to socialize, for example, inside restaurants or bars. Therefore, Hong Kong has a really high restaurant density and the number of restaurants is really high. The commercial space in urban area is very well-developed. You could say that this is a small benefit from that problem. Small living area limits your activity at home. Storage is also a big problem. Of course, it always depends on how people are using the space and what they are expecting. People in Hong Kong are very used to the small living environment and have adapted to it by going to other places outdoor to satisfy their own needs. The living space would have a wide influence in many aspect of dailylife. However, not a lot have pay the attention in this aspect. Another major impact here is about 'privacy'. A lot of siblings in Hong Kong have to share a room as we usually don't have enough rooms for each individual. Actually not only when you are young, a lot of people, even grown-ups could not have their own room.

Interviewer: Can other means balance the impact of the problem? Can the benefits could balance out the negative impact brought by the small living space?

Mr Ho: Actually not. It is hard to be balanced. Small living space, for example, is forcing student to go out to cafes or libraries... or even Mcdonald's to study. The small living space is forcing people to solve the problem by consumption. They got to spend money to deal with these basic needs. But Hong kong people had got used to this way of living already. We are indeed making use of the consumer society to deal with the problem where our basic needs could not be satisfied.

Interviewer: What’s your opinion on the current urban density of Hong Kong, fair or too high?

Mr Ho: Well... the density could be a liveable one. As the current problems, such as small housing size or ventilation problems are not necessarily the outcome of high densities, if we could do better design in these terms, I think the high density development mode could be maintained and it could be a liveable one. I think that the density is not the key problem, the thing is how you design and manage the high density environment and make it a liveable one.

Interviewer: Yes I got your point. That's the end of the interview. Thank you so much for your time.

(II) TRANSCRIPT – DR EDWARD YIU (HOUSING) Date of the interview: 2nd November, 2017

Name: Dr Edward Yiu Chung Yim

Place of the Interview: Local cafe close to interviewee's office

Duration of the interview: 58 minutes

Interviewer: Ka Sik Tong

Profession of the interviewee: Edward Yiu is a Hong Kong scholar and politician. He is a former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong since 2016 Legislative Council election representing the Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape functional constituency.

Professional field: Architectural, Surveying, Planning

Interviewer: Good afternoon, thank you so much for accepting my interview request. Shall we start now?

Dr Yiu: Sure.

Interviewer: So to start with, how would you define ‘liveable environment’?

Dr Yiu: It is very difficult to define. A lot of scholars just define 'good city' with a set of criteria, but it is a very top-down approach. It is all about how 'I believe' to be true, but it is not fine to define like that. For example, the Economist would define 'liveable' as how the environment would allow people to choose. If only people can choose, it means happiness. I also go with this belief. If you asked me what does it means by 'liveable', I would say to make a city a place where most of the people, or the majority, could be able to make their free choices. Then, it would be a place that is liveable from my point of view. If we all agree that, global warming, the large gap between rich and poor are causing externalities on people, for example, the poor in Hong Kong could not choose but only to live in somewhere where the air is heavily polluted, while the rich could be able to move to somewhere better. So this means that I have no choice. If that environment could allow, even if I am poor, I could have the ability to choose and make decisions, then it would be very ideal. Why nowadays, people in Hong Kong do not want to be poor? They may not be looking for luxurious lifestyle, but they wanted to escape from disasters, or harm, like pollutions. But in Hong Kong, you cannot actually do so. For example, many are living in, Tong-Fong, Subdivided housing,in Mongkok, we have done plenty of interviews with these residents. The liveability in these flats, well, according to the residents,12 o'clock midnight, Parknshop would be delivering goods to different stores, they were highly affected by the street activities, and could not sleep at all, in addition with the light pollution from all the Neon lights on the street. In this condition, everyone knows how to solve the problem, that is to move away, to other locations, but in our society, it is hardly possible when you don't have money. Only if you are rich you would be able to live in a better environment. We are now wishing to approach the problem in smarter ways. Under the trend of smart city, we would be able to let people, who are poor, but they could still make their own choices to live.

Interviewer: But how can smart city bring you better liveability?

Dr Yiu: Smart governance, for example, smart transportation. In the past, richer people could drive, so they could go everywhere quickly and conveniently. But for the poor, they could only wait for public transportation for a long time. If we could provide smart transportation, then they could use the app to see whether there are other options, such as car-pooling. Then they could share the cost and enjoy the convenience of using the private cars in another way. That would allow everyone could have the 'choice'. I am emphasising a lot on choices as I, myself, really dislike crowded and noisy environment. So my family have moved to somewhere not close to the metro, where we can enjoy the nature and country parks. It is my personal choice and such environment reflect my own conception of 'liveable'. But to many people, it would be a very different concept, where metro would be very important in terms of making the environment liveable. So if there's a world ranking for liveability saying that transportation convenience level would be very important, that 'liveable' area would turn out to be not liveable from my point of view. So in that sense, I believe that letting people have a 'choice' would be essential, then everyone can choose where ever they like to live in. Therefore, for me 'liveable' depends on how much freedom do people have in terms of choosing where to live.

Dr Yiu: When you are talking about liveability, I would prefer not to refer to all the absolute standards set out by the scholars or world rankings. I don't think that liveability could be measured in such a way. I would rather define liveable as 'allowing more people to make their own choices in lifestyle and living environment'. In this definition, Hong Kong is definitely struggling, for example, the government is planning to build a new building on top of the green area next to Chi Fu estate, and that would severely affect the liveability of the area. The government is not allowing us to participate in these kinds of the decision-making process, and the urban liveability turns out would be affected. And our own definition of 'urban liveability' was not being considered in this progress. Whether liveable or not, is solely decided by the government in Hong Kong, and they believed that top-down planning and decision making would lead to the best outcome, a 'liveable' area, but in fact, this would not be the case right? People are being forced to accept these decisions and passively affected by these decisions. It must be related to 'urban governance'.

Interviewer: Do you think Hong Kong is liveable according to your definition?

Dr Yiu: I don't think so. Let's evaluate by going through those sets of criteria which ranks a liveable city. There are several ones that Hong Kong is always ranking at the bottom. First, about housing, we already consecutively came first on the World Most Unaffordable Cities rankings for 6 years. Even if we only consider the housing affordability, Hong Kong's liveability should already be severely affected. Then, we have education concern, where I believe that the education system in Hong Kong to be largely flawed. Recently, we have the huge controversy on the TSA exam for grade 3 students. But even with such huge objections from the public, the government was not reacting to that. The competition-based education system would also affect the liveability of Hong Kong. The only thing we performed well... probably economic growth and such and such? But the urban mobility in Hong Kong is still pretty low, and young people in Hong Kong could not improve and move forward, while the work hours in Hong Kong is the world longest, like 50+ hours per week. From all these aspects, I can't see Hong Kong as a liveable city at all. From the physical living environment aspect, the inner city greening is not sufficient, and it is creating physical as well as the psychological impact on citizens. The high-density living environment may create huge psychological pressure on people and make people less emotionally stable. Well... there are a lot of good aspects in Hong Kong, where we have a good social security net, protecting people from suffering. However, from the aspect of liveability, I don't really think that the current living environment in Hong Kong would be considered as highly 'liveable'.

Interviewer: Going back to the compact city theory, by developing in such density and compactness, it was originally hoping to be able to free up more spaces for public green spaces and amenities. As you've mentioned that you have observed that the green spaces were not sufficient in Hong Kong, would you mind to describe that phenomenon further? and what would be the reason behind?

Dr Yiu: In older districts, we definitely have not sufficient greenings or public spaces. Even in newer districts, we also have the problem of having a large area of public spaces but they are not meeting the needs of people. In old districts, we only have 'pocket parks' which are small to a point that they usually only contain like 1-2 trees with 1-2 chairs, as if you're staying in a prison. But in Tin Shui Wai, the New Town, we have few 10 thousand square feets of public spaces where no one ever visits, which was designed in non-human scale at all. In Hong Kong, public spaces are usually in these two extremes.

Interviewer: What kind of benefits did the high-density compact development of Hong Kong have brought to residents?

Dr Yiu: Economy of scale definitely. Everything is cheaper in Hong Kong. The same size of land, we are accommodating above 20 times of populations. One launch station would be able to support a lot more people than in elsewhere. So the economic growth comes from that, we are able to support the economy of scale by the density we have. That's the trade-off in Hong Kong, the higher the density, the easier for us to achieve these economies of scale. But in exchange, you gotta endure the negative impact of the high-density.

Interviewer: In the theory of compact development, the country park was one of the key element, where, by the compact design and higher inner-city density, we would be able to protect the environment and secure the back garden of the city. Would this, the contained way of development, related to the land insufficiency in Hong Kong? If not, what would be the main reason behind the current land shortage in Hong Kong?

Dr Yiu: It's first started with historical reason. Originally Hong Kong is a very hilly landscape and under the rapid influx of population, the British Hong Kong government at that time had to develop along the coastline with a higher density. Not until later Kowloon was being leased to the U.K., they can start to develop New Towns in Kowloon. The government was not planning to build in such high density initially, for example, they were originally planning in the mindset of 'Garden City', such as Kowloon Tong was supposed to plan according to that thought. However, the war happening in China was leading to the sudden influx of people. And turns out the government have no choice but to develop in higher densities. Until later on, we had earned some more possibilities with the lease of the New Territories. I would say, historical reason would be the main reason behind such development pattern.

Interviewer: What about the biggest shortcoming of this development mode?

Dr Yiu: Personally, I believe that it would be about health impact. There are already plenty of experiements and research done on this topic. Plenty is suggesting that a high density environment would lead to different psychological impact on human beings, such as depression. Personally, I believe that high-density would be one of key factor affecting ones' mood, well-being. I have lived in 4 different districts in the past with different densities, and personally, I could feel the emotional difference between different densities.

Interviewer: Hong Kong indeed has a very unique housing environment, do you find the physical features, which means the high-rise, high density, small units housing environment, a liveable one? In terms of public housing, do you think a 3-person unit with 21-30 sq/m a size which is acceptable and meeting the basic need of people?

Dr Yiu: In my data set, usually the average housing size would be 14 sq/m per person, even myself, I am currently living in an apartment with 50 sq/m shared by 4 people, so even myself, is only having around 12-13 sq/m. In fact, small housing area is not the cause of problem, but the outcome of the problem. The city is having a overly high living standards, in order to make a living, we are being forced to reduce our living space. Everyone knows that living space is having a big impact on our mental health, but this is an problem related to affordability as well. Ummmm...

Interviewer: To explain my question further, actually, I have asked this question owing to the fact that a lot of literature has been stating that in a high-density compact environment, housing affordability would be negatively affected, while personal living space would be affected as well. I was wondering how do you observe this phenomenon in Hong Kong and what would be the negative impact on citizens as observed in this city.

Dr Yiu: First, let us start with the question ' How much space do people need to satisfy their basic needs?'. Recently research in Taiwan would be a pretty good reference answering this question, in their report, they have stated in minimum, everyone should have one bed, every family should at least have a cooking space etc. They have illustrated the house and calculated the basic area for each human being would be 9 sq/m. This would be the bare minimum for satisfying basic needs. However, if you asked people if that is sufficient or not, they could hardly tell, as they would consider their own affordability as well. As I could not afford to move or to live in a different district, therefore I have to be satisfied with what I've got. My requirements would be correlated to my affordability, people would consider this as well, so it's hard to say whether this, 9sq/m is sufficient or not, and it's a difficult question to answer. I have been living in that apartment only if I consider that as sufficient, if not, why would I even decide to move there?

Interviewer: However, I have been thinking about those who have no choice, such as the large population who are currently living in public housing estates in Hong Kong. They were being allocated to these housing units, which is by and large, not based on their own decision making. Moreover, there are a lot of people who have no choice but to stay with their family.

Dr Yiu: I think in the current situation, public housing would be able to at least satisfy peoples' minimum needs, such as each one could at the minimum, have their bed, and a table. So, I would say it's acceptable. The key point is that there is no definite STANDARD for measuring that. For example, in that report from Taiwan, they justify basic minimum as people having their own bed, a family having their own kitchen and toilet, then it could satisfy people's basic needs for survival. So I would say, public housing in Hong Kong is designed according to these principles as well. It is to satisfy the basic survival needs. So it is hard to define. For the residents, if they are just expecting a housing unit that is satisfying their basic survival needs, then they would find it satisfactory, wouldn't they? In particular, a lot of people in an older age, they have experienced the past post-war situation where they wouldn't even have their own bed. In comparison, probably a lot would find the current situation acceptable.

Interviewer: That would be the question I would like to ask, do you think it is alright to simply design housing with that mindset, where public housing simply only have to fulfil the bare minimum survival needs? Afterall 20 percent of the total population in Hong Kong is living in these housing units.

Dr Yiu: I feel like it is meaningless to say we have to build it in better form. We can only do so by damaging the environment, by clearing up nature so as to build better housing. I think the key question is 'The city as a whole, considering its carrying capacity, how many people can it actually hold?'. This is a controversial topic. As the Hong Kong government was stating their ambition to make Hong Kong a megacity with 1billion people, however, you are saying that the small housing unit is inhumane, and asking everyone had to have 15 sq/m. It is almost impossible to do them both at the same time. The only way to do so would be to remove the forests, the green area, and to build on top of that. In that sense, this statement would be leading to a trade-off, so I believe that a city, in particular in terms of ecological footprint, there should be a definite carry capacity.

Interviewer: When the urban density of Hong Kong is already reaching the top of the world figure, I was always wondering, what would be the optimal density for a city?Then, do you think that we are already exceeding our own carry capacity in Hong Kong? How about the optimal density for this piece of land?

Dr Yiu: I think so. But there are yet to have sufficient research on this topic. For example, if we got to have double of the current living area, and reduce half of the current population, then we do not necessarily have to damage the nature. Would it be much better in that sense? Going back to the very start of the discussion, why does Hong Kong have to be built in such high density? From the angle of government and businesses, it is all about the economy of scale. If we have 1billion population, then we could continue to grow our economy.

Interviewer: Hong Kong government had mentioned in Hong Kong 2030+ long-term strategy proposal that they would like to continue the high-density compact development strategy, consolidation of the urban area is expecting to rise continuously, the higher density may create higher pressure on the transportation system and facilities. Do you think this policy would have a further impact on urban liveability?

Dr Yiu: There are plenty of people in Hong Kong actually suggest that as we have only developed 24% of our land, while 76% remains to be not developed, why couldn't we develop 10+% of that 76% of the protected land? However, they have ignored the fact that 24% appeared to be in extreme high-density. If you average that density, we could say we have already developed 70% of our land. That is a trade- off here. We have chosen the path with high density and so as to protect the nature. But now, if we are going back and suggest that we still have 76% of the undeveloped land, and we should develop those parts as well, then wouldn't it be meaningless for us to develop in such high-density if we are giving up to protect the nature? The key question here is that why do we need to have a growing population? Think about that. We do not need a growing population. Our current natural population growth is 0%, and the prediction is that our population growth would be negative starting from 2040. Of course, our government would like to keep the population growth by different means, as the previous decades of economic growth in Hong Kong were indeed supported by the population growth. The lack of population growth may hinder the economic growth, that's why the government wanted to further expand the city scale and to sustain the population in the city, such as importing working population from elsewhere. So I believe, the urban liveability, density it's also highly related to the population policy here in Hong Kong. I do not actually agree with the megacity policy, and I do not think that the land we have in Hong Kong could support that amount of people. It is important to conduct a research on the carrying capacity of Hong Kong, but turns out the difficulty of conducting this research is larger than expected. The crucial question lies here is that do we actually need that economic growth? What would be the benefits we earn from this growth? and in exchange, how would the citizens suffer from that?

Interviewer: In view of the Government goal of making Hong Kong liveable, which aspect do you find to have the highest importance and urgency for improvement?

Dr Yiu: Smart government. I believe that it is essential to give back the decision making power to the citizen themselves. Rather than talking about the standards, the standard urban living area or the greening area, I believe that it is more important to allow people to gain back the power to make their own decision for their own living environment.

Interviewer: So you are talking about... as the housing problem is wicked in nature, we could hardly change it physically, so rather than discussing about these physical features, it is more flexible and essential to give people the freedom to choose, to balance out the negative impact brought by the housing problem? Do you mean that ?

Dr Yiu: Yea... A lot of things would be easier to approach. For example, in a district, public spaces, the government could give back the governing power to the residents themselves. In current governance of public spaces, the government doesn't allow a lot of thing to happen and limiting the usage of such space, it is definitely not a good management. You can literally only walk and sit in a park, you can't even run, or having fun inside. These are also crucial to urban liveability, and I believe that freedom is essential to make a place liveable. And governance would be one aspect that need to be worked on.

Interviewer: However, I have one question in mind, that is, when housing is already a wicked problem, where urban liveability would be largely hindered by the housing quality in Hong Kong, can providing more choices/ freedom in other aspects, balanced back the impact of housing? Would it be possible?

Dr Yiu: Some people said that we do not actually need the country parks, instead we should just develop them so as to provide better housing for people. Again I do not think that this arguement is valid. From my viewpoint, after a week of overly crowded city life, at least I could spend my weekend in the country parks. No matter how small my house is, at least during holidays, I could be able to enjoy my time in country parks for free. If we are developing all these country parks and turns it to private housing, the one who enjoy these housing wouldn't be me nor the poor, as you wouldn't have the money for that. Then, it will just be a worser situation for us. We would lost the recreational area, but we would still suffer from the poor housing condition. That's why plenty of people actually trying to protect the country parks, as public spaces would be the only fair and open space that we shared the ownership and right to use. In that sense, the poor wouldn't be exploited. However, for the rich, country park would be such a waste of land, instead why wouldn't we just convert it to housing land and build more housing units, so we could enjoy better housing?

Interviewer: I got your point.... however, I am really curious, you have mentioned that we could provide more choices so as to compensate the poor housing condition and the impact of that on urban liveability. However, in Hong Kong, the major population do not even have a choice in where to live...

Dr Yiu: Well, yea... A lot have no choice in where to live, but at least with that portion of protected area, we could have a choice in where to enjoy our weekends or holiday. Unless we could develop in different means, providing different mode of housing, or else I believe that this is the only way to make the city more liveable in a sense. Developing in different mode, would be such a long term thing, temporarily I cannot see any possibility yet. I am now advocating the development of co-op housing and I believe that this would be a way out for Hong Kong. Instead of encouraging people to buy properties, I think that it is better to consider other ways of development. Co-op housing, for example, is encouraging the mode that people can actually pay for their housing building cost, and the government does not have to pay for the construction cost, they only have to provide the land. From choosing where to build, how to build and how to manage, it could be all managed by the co-op. This would be a better method, as it would return back to the state where people would be responsible to their own housing, resulting in no more problem in mismatch of needs and expectation in terms of housing.

Interviewer: How about the land?

Dr Yiu: Well, the government should provide the land, when one leave that living area then the land would be return back to the government.

Interviewer: However, the current strategy of the government is to earn revenue by land sales, how can we convince them to do so?

Dr Yiu: Yes, currently land sales would be the major income source for the government, but I mean, why should the government earn her income from land sales?

Interviewer: Right... But then the biggest challenge for that idea would be to convince the government to accept this proposal huh?

Dr Yiu: Haha yea. But then, by adopting this idea, we would be able to prevent the current problem where a lot of people are buying flats as a profit-seeking investment, and leading to the phenomenon of extremely high housing price.

Interviewer: There are increasing number of cities that are following this track of development, do you think this is a urban form that should be further promoted?

Dr Yiu: When cities says they would like to develop in such a way, they usually focus on the transportation mode, where mass transportation system in Hong Kong is performing extremely well. Second, it's about the efficiency of land usage. These are the two major reasons why people are advocating this way of development. From my point of view, as long as we could have the research on the carrying capacity of the land/ the city, it is possible that we could be able to measure and calculate the maximum capacity of a city, for instance, the population. If that is the case, then I believe that this could be a good model for development. But the problem now in Hong Kong is that we have yet to figure out the answer for that and we are increasing the population here without a limit. It is not working. The density is already excessive. I believe that Hong Kong is already overly populated. The optimal density is key. I agree. This is a pretty interesting question. This way of development, compact, high-density could definitely bring certain benefits, however, it is not possible to unlimitedly increase the population density inside the city. Where is the optimal, would be a really good question… I think you can try conducting this research later.

Interviewer: Thank you so much! This is the end of the interview.

(III) TRANSCRIPT – MR SIMON NG (TRANSPORTATION) Date of the interview: 21st November, 2017 Place of the Interview: Phone Interview Duration of the interview: 40 minutes Interviewer: Ka Sik Tong Profession of the interviewee: Independent Consultant working on air quality, urban transportation and sustainability issues Professional field: Urban Environment, Transportation, Emission, Sustainability and Liveability Previous research/projects related to this interview: co-author of Global Cities: Urban Environments in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China, published by MIT Press (2017) Transcript in English: V Transcript in Original Language: V

Mr Simon Ng: Good Morning.

Interviewer: Good Morning. Thank you so much for accepting my interview request. There are 10 questions in this interview, which is mainly focus on how Hong Kong’s transportation is related to the liveability in Hong Kong. Shall we start now?

Mr Simon Ng: Sure.

Interviewer: One essential element of compact development is the promotion of affordable and accessible public transportation, how would you evaluate the transportation in Hong Kong regarding affordability, efficiency and social equity?

Mr Simon Ng: Okay. First, let me start with efficiency. I think Hong Kong’s transport system is very well developed and the system provides different choices and the service level is also very high with regular services and short-headways like for rail services and bus services. In general, I think the public transport is very efficient and when it comes to affordability emm... I think it is difficult to tell. I would say if we compare the transport fare to cities around the world which are civilized and economic development level are similar, I think Hong Kong's public transport is very affordable. The transport fare is relatively lower than the other cities, but, of course, when you think about whether people in Hong Kong can afford to use the transport system then it depends on the income level and obviously also depends on transport mode they are taking and you know, because Hong Kong is also facing income disparity issue, you know, people who are rich are really rich and they don't use public transport very much but for those who are less well-off, they have to rely on public transport emmm, and for some of them actually public transport, especially like taking rail services, from New Territories to the urban centre could be quite expensive. So, and that leads to your third part of the question, about equity. So I think in terms of whether all people can afford our public transport system I would say we could do better because for some people who really have low-income level I think they struggle. Em.. and for those... who, I mean for the elderly people, for those who have already retired and unemployed , I think they might have a hard time, you know, trying to pay for their public transport, em, even though for the elderly people, they are now being offered the 2 dollars (hkd) per trip per section, but still I think you know, for those who didn't have a job, it is quite difficult for them to travel around in some circumstances. And when it comes from social equity, I think it is much more than whether they can afford, or everyone can afford the public transportation system in Hong Kong, but it is also about you know, whether we have provided the system which is accessible to people who have different transport needs, for example, for the disabled people, elderly people, although they are being offered concessions, but in terms of the system itself, the physical system, whether it's accessible to them, whether it becomes pretty difficult for them to get into the system, I think it is also part of the social equity issue. But I think over the past 10-15 years, most of the public transport operators are trying or have introduced some better design, universal access kind of design, so that people with different transport need and physical disabilities can still use the system and it is not just about the rail system, it's also about the bus system, they are now buying low floor buses, which are much more accessible to those who are using wheelchairs or having walking difficulties, I would say we could still do better in Hong Kong in terms of making our transportation system more accessible to different sectors of society, but you know, they have made some improvements and they could do better.

Interviewer: Yea, these are very good information about social equity. So for the second question, It is believed that the reliance on a collective form of transportation would enhance urban liveability regarding reducing pollution on the road, can we observe this benefit in Hong Kong?

Mr Simon Ng: So I think my answer would be yes, and no. I think of course, public transport is very important in Hong Kong. and you know, in terms of transport planning over the past 50 years, there's always been an emphasis on promoting, and developing and expanding our public transportation system, em, so with more people using public transport, supposedly that should mean that there would be fewer vehicles on the road, em, and if you are using an off road mode, like the mtr which is part, or most of the system is underground, and it should help in terms of reducing pollution on the road, or streetside. But as a matter of fact, Hong Kong still have a lot of vehicles and private cars on the road and the number is growing in the last few years, which is an alarming situation and you know, diesel vehicles runing on street would contribute to pollution, even though these vehicles are now becoming to be cleaner, because of tighter pollution standards, but you know, if you have larger number, then it will kind of you know, compensate the improvement in terms of emm, emission standards, so I think, we are seeing some improvements on road-side pollution and part of it is related to the use of public transport, and of course, also, with the promotion of cleaner vehicles, it helps, but you know, if the government continue to fail to control the number of vehicles, or the growth of number of vehicles, then, we are creating more problems and troubles.

Interviewer: Okay, then, what do you think would be the reason behind this growth? Mr Simon Ng: Well, number 1 that there is no control, ah haha...so the government doesn't pull out any really useful control measures to try to limit or restrict the growth of vehicles, compare to say, London, you have road pricing so people have to think twice when they drive into busy area during the peak hours, in Singapore or even in Beijing in Shanghai they have the billing system, so you have to pay a premium, inorder to bid for the right to buy a car, so emmm, this is different measures to try and control the number of vehicles in the city. Hong Kong you know, I think the only control the government is to lavy the first registration tax on the vehicle, so when you buy a new car, actually you have to pay a 100% registration tax for that. And that has been reflected on the retail price of the car, so maybe you feel it or maybe you don't feel it, umm, and you know nowadays, people are getting more and more wealthy, it doesn't really matter. As those who want to buy a car, they are usually economically well- off and so they probably can afford the tax and I mean, if the number is growing in the last few years, it kinds of demonstrating that this first registration tax either, is not enough or it is not working.

Interviewer: Okay. So we can say that because of population growth in urban area, is reducing the benefits in terms of pollution of the public transportation?

Mr Ng: Well, population increase, yes. But you know, we can still cope with it with good urban planning and transport planning.

Interview: What’s your opinion on transportation and its relation to urban liveability? In what way do the transportation in Hong Kong enhance urban liveability and in what way it hinders urban liveability?

Mr Ng: Okay, now if we think about urban liveability in the context of very dense and compact city like Hong Kong, ummm you know, people think about living space but still we also need mobility because people need to move from one place to another. So, I would say you know given the dense and compact morphology, if you want people to also have the ability to move around then you have to use mass transport, you have to use large scale transport system to move people around in an efficient manner. If everyone takes their own cars, then you have a lot of vehicles, yet you don't have place to build more roads and of course, road vehicles will also bring noise and air pollutions and other environmental issues to the city so I don't think that is feasible. Because of that, I really believe that I mean, we have to think about what kind of transportation system that suits good urban liveability. Unless you're living in a very low density urban environment, then maybe you can afford to have a few more cars, but in Hong Kong, given the lack of space, I don't think we can go with that pathway. So, definitely public transportation is important. And then, you know you have to think about, 'ok, still, public transportation in the system, but we have a lot vehicles, and some of them are polluting vehicles, burning fossil fuels, so you know, then you have to think about what can we do more to make sure that even after picking public transportation as the skeleton or the backbone of our transport system, then whatelse can we do? So we have to think about, can we use electric cars?You know the MTR, or the rail system, or even the buses. Can they be converted into electric buses, rather than using diesel fuel. If they cannot go all the way from diesel to electric, then can they at least be hybrid? So that we can at least save some fuel consumption and then, also try to cut air pollution coming from the transport system. And there are other things that, you know, cities like Hong Kong are beginning to do, to think about like, okay, for short distance journey can we rely on something different? Can we stay away from vehicles, can we cycle or walk?And if we want to encourage people to use these non-motorise or mechanize transportation form, then what are the infrustructural or ammenities that we need to provide to promote cycling or walking in Hong Kong? So I think there are different layers in transportation system and in the past, we focused a lot on vehicles and huge, large systems. Definitely for Hong Kong, for better urban liveability, we have to go for public transport, but other than public transport, we also have to think about short distance journey, you know if I only want to be mobile within my neighbourhood, I don't need a car nor a bus, I can just walk or cycle around. So you know, I think we need to think beyond vehicles and that what's we can do to enhance urban liveability in Hong Kong and we fail to do that then obviously we will degrade our urban liveability.

Interviewer: As in Hong Kong, owing to the TOD development strategy, residential housing was usually placed near transportation hubs, do you think noise pollution caused by transportation, including road traffics and trains, could have a significant impact on urban liveability?

Mr Ng: Definitely yes. Given the compactness and density. But I think it is part and partial of developing a dense city I am not saying that we should ignore noise pollution problem, actually it is a huge problem. But if you look at what government has been doing, in terms of trying to address environmental issues related to transportation system, most pollution is not high on the agenda. They kind of acknowledge that there's a problem, but they don't put in too much resources to do it, to address it. Or people do not actually realise that it is a big problem. But I would say, okay, I would not say TOD is bad because of noise pollution. I would say if we want to go to have more TOD development and then adding density and then making the city and the transportation system compact, what can we do to address noise pollution. Now, in Hong Kong, like the rail station, I think they have got different measures through better engineering and design, to reduce or kind of litigate noise coming from rail operation, especially at the depot. We have depotes in different urban districts, usually they put high-rise or they put platform on top of it to contain the noise. So that's one way to do it in Hong Kong. For road traffic, of course, it's also full of challenge, so either, you try to use I think some materials to pave your road so that it could reduce noise. Or you build the permission to stop the noise the panel. Frankly speaking I don't like these panels, but you know if there's no other choice, you have to build the road or if the road is already there before you build the city or the residential area, then you have to look for some pragmatic measures, and maybe that's the best way to reduce traffic noise from the residential area. But you know better city planning, even if we are taking the TOD approach, I think there area different ways to make sure the noise problem and air pollution problem can be minimize.

Interviewer: So do you think that the impacts such as noise or air pollution are inevitable? Do you think that it is possible to deal with it solely by planning or design measures?

Mr Ng: It is always trying to get a balance. You win some you lose some. If you want to develop in higher density and higher compactness, you know there will be side effects or there will be other issues that you need to deal with. You have to decide or to determine whether that is avoidable or that could be mitigated. So then you can consider the cost and the benefit for having a compact development. In Hong Kong, I would say maybe we don't have a choice because we don't have a lot of land, but actually we do have a choice I mean, for the government to be responsible and to be held accountable, I think they need to compare the benefit and the cost to explain why they are taking different approaches in terms of development and planning. So if they want to develop New Towns in high density, what are the measures that can be implemented to make sure that the negative environmental effects or the impact on urban liveability could be minimized. Now, by law, they have to go through EIA (environmental impact assessment), and if we are talking about certain policy, they also have the SEA (strategic environmental assessment). I do not think that they are perfect systems, but I do think that at least we have something to lean on, so they have to go through the process, like it or not. So, I think at least it forced the developers, whether it's government or the private sectors, to think twice and to look for solutions to cover the base before they put in or start their proposal. So I think it is important and to acknowledge that there would be problems with any source of development. But I think the right mentality is to think about solutions in the very early planning stage so to minimize the problem and impact.

Interviewer: So how would you evaluate the current impact of the compact development mode in Hong Kong on urban liveability from current examples we can observe in Hong Kong? Do you think we have done enough or not? Do you think the public transportation strategy brought more benefits than harm in urban liveability?

Mr Ng: Well, I feel hard to answer your question, so it depends on how people evaluate 'urban liveability ' you know, everyone has a different definition, so maybe the lowest type of expectation is 'okay, we want to have a shelter, we want to have a reasonable mobility, we need amenities in the district or the neighbourhood area, so we should have supermarkets, clinics, shops, and restaurants, so and so forth. This may be the 'live' that people are expecting, whether that is related to public transport, I think to some extent yes, because public transport, or transport system, in general, connect people and connect the trades, so if you have the connections, and the mobility of goods and people, it will usually make the urban liveability better in the sense that it would be less bored, people come around and go to other districts... you will have more interactions, but you know sometimes, people don't like that kind of interaction. So they want to be kind of closed, so when some of the districts, when transportation improved, actually it would bring a lot of outsiders to the district, some people like them, but some people don't like them, so whether that would affect or reduce urban liveability, it really depends on their definitions and their dispenses.But I think in general, public transport definitely will bring more benefits to enhance urban liveability and because of that, we should encourage public transportation system to develop. I think the key is to acknowledge that we would also face negative impacts, and how are we going to contain or minimize these impacts and to deal with them ahead of time. I think that is more important.

Interviewer:Hong Kong government had mentioned in Hong Kong 2030+ long-term strategy proposal that they would like to continue the high-density compact development strategy, consolidation of the urban area is expecting to rise continuously, the higher density may create higher pressure on the transportation system and facilities. Do you think this policy would have a further impact on urban liveability?

Mr Ng: Well definitely yes. To your first question, of course, if you have more people, then you will have a higher pressure on the transportation system because everyone wants to be mobile, they create transport demand. Right now I think that related to one of the earlier questions, so when we talk about the rising car ownership rate, why are people turning to get their own car? It's because of some of them, not all, but some of them, especially the middle class, they got fed up with the public transportation system, because it's too crowded. Because they don't have enough services or because you have to wait in the long queues, em... if they can afford to buy a car, they want to have that kind of freedom, they don't want to waste their time, in a sense that they are losing their time in public transportation services. So you know some of them have decided to buy a car, that is one of the reason why the car ownership rate is going up. Back to the root problem, it is that there are more and more people using our public transport system. But there is a certain capacity or limit in terms of the capacity to build. So what's next, if we continue to add to our density, do we have more capacity to move people around? I think one way to resolve the problem is okay, can we add mass transport system, to the already very crowded urban environment, if we look at the rail development strategy or the lastest development strategy for rail, I think in the next 10 to 15 years, the Government is planning to build and to add or to expand the rail system. For example, on Hong Kong Island, right now we have the Hong Kong line, the government has been planning to build a parallel line, just like in New York or in London, they have a lot of parallel lines. So in Hong Kong, maybe they are going for parallel line policy in the Northern part of Hong Kong island. So maybe that would relieve some of the pressure. So that's one way to do it. But does it mean that we could solve all the problem? I don't know. Because it's not just about our own local population, but it is also about tourists. If we do not control or do not plan for the additional number of tourist coming to Hong Kong, we might not be able to prepare our transport system in providing more capacity for these added patrons. So I think, definitely, the transportation system has to react to the growing number of people and passengers and to plan ahead of time, as we need 5-10 years to plan and to build other systems, brand-new systems, so it obviously takes time.

For the second part of your question, would this policy, by adding density, would it affect urban liveability, so, it's not just about transportation system, or the pressure on it. But about the high-density approach to the development, now I think part of it would be related to the transportation system, if it doesn't support this approach good enough, then, of course, it will affect the urban liveability. But there are other impacts as well which may affect urban liveability, talk about if you add-on the density and maybe you need to...right now, you have 20 - 30 stories buildings but if you want to add density, maybe you have to pull it down and maybe you have to build higher, then, what would be the effect on the rent? Would it go up or go down? I think chances are will go up. Can people afford to live there anymore? So you know it will go through the process of higher rent such as for retail and it will trigger changes in terms of what will be available in the district, or in the neighbourhood area and it might affects some peoples' liveability. For example, for couples or for families who are living in the area for more than 30 years, they knew the neighbourhood very well and they know about the shops and they can buy what they want, but suddenly with added density, new buildings and high-rises, and the increasing of rent, the neighbourhood area would change because of the rent. So all the neighbourhood shops are gone and coming in with all the high-end shops and retail chains. They then may need to pay more to live there and to ... to survive. They may eventually need to move-out. Their urban liveability will be affected, as they have to leave the area that they liked and have to move to a new area. So I think it's like a multi- level kind of impact in terms of urban liveability, some of them are related to the transportation system, while some of them would be related to something else.

Interviewer: Yes, of course. One follow up question, I've heard you mentioned about there are some different aspects affecting urban liveability. Actually Hong Kong government, in their policy document, they are approach further high density compact development mode so, for example housing problem, is always a problem in Hong Kong. Do you think like improving transportation, which is what the government is suggesting, can imrpove urban liveability? Can this balanced out the impact led by housing?

Mr Ng: There are two ways to answer this question, it will help in some sense, but it will lead to negative impacts as well. So the government have to be careful, in terms of housing policy. Let me think about what type of housing you are providing, or the government is going to provide to people, if we talk about private housing or luxury expensive housing , then of course, it doesnt help the situation, it only triggers a new round of investments and segeration. If you are going to allocate some portion of the land for public housing or subsidized housing. Maybe it will kind of balance the situation and make sure that people who are desperate for housing would be taking care of. And because for many people, having a shelter is is a very important factor affecting their urban liveability. So if that could be taking care of, they would feel happy. So if the approach is to continue high density development, I think it doesn't say clear enough of in terms of housing provision and what type of housing will be provided. We need to go into that kind of details and be specific. Also, you know we have to far-sighted enough to see that they need to strike a balance, to make sure that people will be happy in terms of higher density development because as we discussed earlier, if we just improve our public transportation system, and making people more mobile, but then, enhancing transportation, the rent will usually go up, and what would people do if they cannot afford to stay in the same district, and what are their alternatives, how would that affect urban liveability in general. That's what the government should play a role in it.

Interviewer: What’s your opinion on the current urban density of Hong Kong (27,330person/km) , from a transportation angle, do you think it’s fair or too high?

Mr Ng: Okay. Now, from my own point of view, I don't think we can just put an number and say whether the density is high or low. You have to consider the local context. If you talk about 27,000 person per km in the U.S., you will get a very different response compare to the thing you are talking about in the Asian context. So I think the number is not a most important thing. I would say, in the Asian context, usually people can accept higher density, and we also see some benefits with higher density development, in terms of energy use, in terms of transportation, in terms of other benefits, of course it comes with some problems, for example, there's too crowded, if you don't take care of the hygiene system, air pollution, noise pollution problems, then of course, you will lead to other issues. But then we know the good and the bad related to high density development, and then we can cope with that. But I want to say more on density and transportation and the connection. Hong Kong has always been the only city, actually running a public transport system in a financially sustainable situation without any form of heavy handed government subsidy. The only reason to sustain that is that we have a very high density and we have a high density in a sense that most of the people are living or they are having their activities along major urban corridors. So with these urban corridors, our urban density is even higher. But because of that, our train systm, our bus system can concentrate to provide services along those corridors, and because of the high patronage actually the patronage itself can support the building and the operations of these systems. This is unparallel in the world, you cannot think of any other location, maybe only Manhatten, but you know, the rail system, the bus system or the transit system in general in Manhatten is regulated differently so it is basically the government planned and regulate or owned the systems. So it is very different strategies. In Hong Kong, it is runned by private sector but they can sustain financially but that's because of the compactness and density. So from the transport point of view, having such a high density is probably the best thing for the operator because they can support their own system and they can have reserve to plan and sort to expand the system. So I think this is the example in Hong Kong.

Interviewer: Can the current transportation support further increase in urban density? Mr Ng: Emmm, I think...Maybe? But actually the government have to study the current system and the level of services and whether there are still spare capacity to further improve or to add to services. But I suspect some of the systems, like the rail system, the current rail system, I think is getting almost saturated and it definitely need to expand, in order to support even higher density.

Interviewer: Do you think there would be a saturation point of urban density in which our public transportation system could support? (capacity, efficiency, affordability)

Mr Simon Ng: Definitely. I think in all, in any system there would be point where either you expand or the system will crash if the demand continue to grow but I think you know, it doesn't mean that we have to shut down or to change our urban development mode. I think we are on the right track. Definitely in Hong Kong, density and compactness is the way to go, it's about how to be smart and innovative in terms of providing the support to such high density. I truely believe that we have the expertise and we have the resources to make sure that our future transportation system can cope with the higher density now. I am not saying that we have to increase our density indefinitely, I think at some point, we are just having too many people and we have to stop. Right now, I think we can still add, but whether this is the best way to go further down the line, I don't know. There are always debate that you should contain your population say to 5.7.or to 10 million, but you know I don't see a problem to go beyond that but it doesn't mean that we should go beyond that. It is related to how people think about urban density, whether they are happy with the current density. I think liveability is much more important than density, so if people are happy about the current urban liveability and by adding density it doesn't really change or upset urban liveability maybe people can still cope with it but it's going to affect and it is going to take away say making the transportation system much more crowded and people will probably turn against higher density development. It is really difficult to tell whether which way is good or bad but I think right now we can cope with.

Interviewer: So do you think we can observe more negative impacts of high density development right now in terms of urban liveability? Is the growing density currently creating more problems than before?

Mr Simon Ng: I think it is unfair to say that density would lead to all the problems. I think some of the problems are related to density, and some of the problems might be triggered by high density, but again, the key is we have got sollution to solve or to mitigate the problem. As I've said earlier, we don't have a choice really in Hong Kong in terms of density. I think the difference or the choice would be do you want to go for high density or really super high density, it's always going to be high density, but you know, I think we have the expertise to make sure that even with high density we can still make a reasonable level of urban liveability in the city. I think that's more important.

Interviewer: So do you mean that you have trust in our system and believe that we can cope with further increase in density? Mr Ng: Well, I have to be careful to say that. We cannot continue to increase our urban density, without careful planning. When it comes to planning, it doesn't just about urban planning, but it's also about transportation planning system planning and the way we plan to use the space. If we can do that well, then I think we can still add some density and make it a smart growth of development. But if we cannot or choose not to do it in an innovative way than I think we should not add more density as the system will really crash, cause we are already reaching or close to reaching the satuation point. So it's really up to the government or the professionals whether they can come up with the solution before we add up to the density. But I feel that if we add to the density, we should be able to cope with it with our expertise.

Interviewer: Thank you so much for having the interview with me. This is the end of the interview.

(IV) TRANSCRIPT – MS CARINE LAI (OPEN SPACE) Date of the interview: 6 November 2017

Name: Ms Carine Lai

Place of the Interview: Interviewee's Office

Duration of the interview: 54 Minutes

Interviewer: Ka Sik Tong

Profession of the interviewee: Previous researcher of Civic Exchange - public policy think-tank in Hong Kong

Professional field: Urban Green Space, Urban Liveability

Previous research/projects related to this interview: Research titled 'Unopened Space: Mapping Equitable Availability of Open Space in Hong Kong'

Interviewer: Good morning. Thank you so much for accepting my interview request. Would you prefer the interview in Cantonese or English?

Ms Lai: Yea... Both are fine.

Interviewer: Sure, then let me start with English. So Hong Kong is a city with a compact form and one of the theories in the Compact city is that if we developed our city in a compact form like this, we can provide more green space for the citizens. So, from your research finding, what do you think about this? Do we, in Hong Kong, providing more green space to citizens to use the urban area? Or actually, we are failing in some aspects.

Ms Lai: Um... actually, we have a lot of country parks space and that's really great. The good thing is that people can travel for half an hour to one hour then they could reach the country-side and enjoy the kind of building-less environment. It's difficult for a lot of other cities because the city just spread out so far and you have to travel over 3-4 hours before you even reach the edge. For another side, it's that within the urban area there is very little open space per capita. And this is a problem because not everyone can go to the country park every weekend, especially if you are elderly or if you have very young children, you're looking after babies, there are a lot of people in a lot of life stages that could take a benefit of the country parks. There is some overseas research, I think it's actually from Holland, and it finds that the benefit of open space in terms of well-being actually it depends on how much exposure you have to it. So people who are exposed to green space everyday benefit more, if you only got to expose to green space once in a while, then your benefit is much less.

Interviewer: Right, especially as I have observed in Hong Kong, usually old districts had really limited open space. Is it true as well as found in your research?

Ms Lai: Yes. It is very low in older districts and this is because of the historical pattern of development. A lot of cities have similar issues within their older urban areas. But I think that in Hong Kong it's probably worst because, ah..., the government has not really made providing open space with a really big priority in the past and also, we are constrained by the fact that we already have built up urban areas and the coastline which is sort of constrained. Um.. and it's also due to our historical method of land development when the colonial government which sell land in order to make money because they had low taxes. So basically every piece of land could be used for selling.

Interviewer: Yea. But the interesting thing I found in this is that the government is trying to provide more green space by regulating the private owner to provide privately owned public spaces. So what do you think of those kinds of public spaces?

Ms Lai: Um.. I think they bring some benefits to the residents of the development who live there but in terms of for the community development, then the benefit is very limited. Because people who lived outside of them could not access them. And often they were being built on the podium level and you can't even enjoy it in that way. You can't even look at it, it's not like you can look at peoples' garden and enjoy visually some green space. The other thing is that... It's basically when they do this in the New Territories, especially when they have more land, it's basically they still have a bunch of islands of development and they are all sort of internally facing and they don't have very many relationships with each other. So this type of urban development, I guess it doesn't really foster social interaction as much as it should.

Interviewer: And one more thing I am interested in that as you have mentioned in the old towns like its obviously developed, like history-led. How about the new towns, like the green space provision, and also the quality of the green space? Do you have any insights about that?

Ms Lai: Well, I haven't study the quality yet. And we are going to do that in the future. Um.. but I think in the New Territories, there is more per capita provision of open space. Um.. but then a lot of them are more private. Like if you look at the new towns and ur..says Tseung Kwan O or Fanling or like these areas... It's all those large, private developments and when you have a lot of them, probably up to, the highest figure I have found is like 25% was private open space. If you look at my report, you would be able to check that figure.

Interviewer: So do you think, right now, the green space provision, like what you have observed, you have found, is beneficial to Hong Kong people's well-being? Is it sufficient?

Ms Lai: I don't think it is right now, in urban areas. I mean it depends on where you live, certain area have a lot, if you are lucky enough to live in Discovery Bay or Kowloon Tong, then yea, they have a lot of green space. But, if you are living in Ma Tau Kok or North Point, they have very little, while Mong Kok is the worst.

Interviewer: How about quality wise?

Ms Lai: The quality in the older area tends to be quite low. Because it's basically built for easy maintenance. I think people there tend to be more worried about homeless people and drug addicts. So they basically built it deliberately to be uncomfortable to drive these people away.

Interviewer: So that the Hong Kong government had mentioned in Hong Kong 2030+ long-term strategy proposal that they would like to continue the high-density compact development strategy, consolidation of the urban area is expecting to rise continuously. How should they do that, cause further consolidation actually means that it would be hard to provide more green space. Do you think it's possible to have more green space, at the same time with the development strategy of further consolidation inside the urban area?

Ms Lai: Do you mean that they want to increase the development density within the existing urban areas?

Interviewer: Yea. I mean that.

Ms Lai: I think that is a really bad idea. Um... the only way you can provide more green space on the same amount of land while also increasing the development density is to build it taller. Um... and I think we are probably already at the limit of how tall the buildings can get in the urban area without having worst impacts on things like airflow and air pollution and street canyon effect. There are a lot of research of civic exchange has described the air quality and basically what happens is that when you have buildings that are taller than the street as wide, then the wind cannot disperse. The air pollution from the vehicles and a lot of our air pollution now is from vehicles emissions, nitrogen oxide, so the worst one I think it's... yea basically it's trapped there. Well, I mean, tall buildings do not necessarily lead to canyon effect if you have enough space between them. Um.. they can build really tall skinny buildings and then if there's not enough space between them, I think it's okay but I think realistically you probably can't really go to the (extremely tall building gesture)... and then if you increase the population density and that also increases the demand for open space and then...so that cancels out your additional space because you have more people trying to use it.

Interviewer: So how about in terms of quality and quantity are there a big difference between open spaces in old and new towns?

Ms Lai: Quality and quantity... Um... well if you look at the figures I came up with, I think in New Towns, there's a difference but not a huge difference. So maybe in the old town, it will be like Mongkok is the worst, it's like 0.6 or something, but it's between 1 and 2 in most of the urban areas. In the New Territories, it's something like 3 or 3.5, which is a bit better, but within 2 or 3, there's not a huge difference. Um... I think it's basically a few sort of really sparsely populated and wealthy areas that have the most open spaces, and those tend to be the beaches. So if you are living near the beach, you have a lot of open space, but otherwise, I mean if you look into Shatin or something, I mean it's better than you live in, like Mongkok, but like...it's REASONABLE amount of open spaces but not great, I mean, even the parks there get quite crowded on the weekends.

Interviewer: Yea. I guess so. So, do you think this provision, as a policy problem?

Ms Lai: I think it's sort of about a very long-standing policy problem. Um... It's sort of ... Most of Hong Kong's history is basically, it's sort of the open spaces is what you put in after you've dealt with everything else. Sort of left-over spaces. and sometimes it's not especially accessible. and now when they are trying to add new open spaces, they put them in places that are really strangely inaccessible, because that's where the left-over land happens to be. Um.. The Jordon Valley Park, that was built on an old landfill. But then you look around that area, no one lives there! That area is like only two residential development within walking distance and nothing else, everybody has to take a bus in. People actually... Um.. If you provide good quality of public spaces, people are willing to travel quite far to get to them. I have talked to someone from development bureaux and they think they had some internal studies and they found one person who was travelling two hours to reach a particular park. I think that is a parent with a special need child, and only that park had the facility that child can use, so they have travelled two hours just to get there because it was important to them.

Interviewer: So have you visited a lot of public spaces in Hong Kong?

Ms Lai: I have studied it by mapping and google street view.

Interviewer: So do you have any plans to study the quality aspect of these public spaces in Hong Kong?

Ms Lai: Quality is a major issue. Even if we have open spaces, basically it's gonna be small then it needs to be of good quality. But in a lot of times, it isn't. It's because the way the government builds and plans open space for easy maintenance and for low budget. The reason why they plant so many palm trees that couldn't provide any shades, it's because you do not have to sweep up the leave. One leave falls, they simply have to throw it away you don't have to go around the room sweeping up the leaves. That's why they put it there. They watered the grass during the lunch time so people won't sit on it during their lunch break. They do all these things to discourage usage just to make it easier for them and lower cost for them to maintain, and that's completely backwards.

Interviewer: So that's why.

Ms Lai: That's why they put the benches in stupid places where you can get a great view of the public toilet. No one would sit there for very long.

Interviewer: The interesting fact is, when I was conducting my research, I have also asked them, the citizens, are they satisfied with this public space, and they are all like, 'yea it's fine'.

Ms Lai: A lot of people are just used to it. They don't expect difference cause they don't see a difference. How can you know that it could be better if you don't see any?

Interviewer: Right...Do you think the park design could facilitate social interaction in general?

Ms Lai: The only social interaction I see is the old man playing chess. Sometimes the old ladies chat but I think you see that more in public housing states when people kind of know their neighbours?

Interviewer: The second thing I would like to ask it's about the densification and the well-being of people. I know that you have participated in the 'Asian Urban-Wellbeing Indicators' research, would you mind to share some insights from that research as well?

Ms Lai: There is a difference between density and overcrowding. Overcrowding is when the individual house is too small and there are too many people in it. And you do not even have the ability to be alone in that room sometimes. That actually stresses people out a lot.

Interviewer: Do you have any research finding that actually focuses on the housing issue in Hong Kong?

Ms Lai: Um... There is one question in the well-being survey that calculates how many, like people per room there is in their house. So if you have a three-room apartment and you have 5 people living in that then it is quite crowded.

Interviewer: Actually, from government figure, a lot of people are living in small housing units, for example, a 3-person unit with 21-30 sq/m a size. Do you think our society is having a greater endurance to crowding?

Ms Lai: If you look at Hong Kong's history it's basically always like that. Um.. If you look at accounts from the 19th century from the historical records, they are talking about 12 people living in a room this big. And I guess that has adjusted the people's expectation, but then if you looked...Um... There's a different study that we actually found a while ago, the small house policy study... One little thing we've found is that people who live in village houses have more children than people who live in the city. I think when people want to have children they moved there because they have 700 square feet. At least they have space for their children.

Interviewer: Our government is trying to balance it out by providing better transportation options,

Ms Lai: I have no scientific basis for this hypothesis but I think that is probably a reason why people work so late so they do not have to go home and be crowded with their family members. They have more space in the office.

Interviewer: Do you have any special findings in your study? Cause transportation is one of the key indicator as well in your study on citizen's wellbeing.

Ms Lai: Um... We do not have that much on transportation as only a few people selected that domain.

Interviewer: Do you think the current urban form of Hong Kong is liveable?

Ms Lai: I think it could be if we dealt with traffic and transport a lot better and if we were able to introduce more open space. Um.. Right now I mean, the way that the transport had been planned is that it basically gives a lot of priority to vehicles and pedestrians are being trapped in these narrow pavements, and it's not very pleasant for pedestrians at all. I mean a lot of it because we just have so much traffic when you have that much density, you have a lot of cars, you have a lot of bus, trucks, deliveries, Um.. the government had basically, their attitude until recently has been well, if there are more and more cars, then we should build more and more roads and we have to widen the roads and we have to put footbridges and held the pedestrians over there so we don't have to stop the traffic. So basically, we just made it less and less liveable as a pedestrian. I think it's started to change, but I think it's still a long way to go to make it more liveable for the pedestrians. If we can actually remove traffics from large chunks of the urban centre, then it will actually be quite liveable provided that you managed the street properly.

Interviewer: so how about the public transportation. We actually have a TOD strategy and the government is relying more and more on that. When we are undergoing further consolidation, and obviously our road system is not so sufficient. The government is now planning to rely more on the MTR. So do you think it is a way to go?

Ms Lai: Yea! Um... basically rail is better than surface vehicles because you know you don't have to deal with the emissions. And the traffic congestion on the road. While it is also safer for the pedestrians. Um... I mean I am not a transport expert at all, so I don't really know to how much extent you could keep cramming more people onto the MTR which is already quite crowded. But they are building more lines so...

Interviewer: So do you find the small domestic living space actually a problem in terms of liveability?

Ms Lai: Um... i think people have adapted quite well to it but I feel like no matter how rich the city gets people's apartments don't get bigger and in fact, they tend to be getting smaller so I don't think that is a sustainable trend.

Interviewer: Yes, in fact, public housing are building in smaller sizes.

Ms Lai: I mean, public housing is actually, I think you should be worrying more about private housing than public housing, to be honest. Like public housing has standards, there are government standards, private housing, NONE. Basically, they could build to the smallest, as long as someone is going to buy it. And then they can make these "TONGFONG" (partitioned housing/ subdivided housing), I mean, those are like really terrible. I think there are a couple hundred thousand, I don't know if the figure is accurate. I mean, basically the rental keeps getting higher, and then they keep dividing because people can't afford anything, like a proper apartment anymore. and then you basically have a whole family living in a 150 sq ft? That's insane and then there are no windows, there's mould and there are bedbugs. It's just basically there's really bad condition. So I think actually public housing... if you are in public housing, and you're at that income level, you're actually doing pretty well. If you have the same living level, and you have to live in "TONGFONG" you're very much worst off.

Interviewer: Yea. One of the big problems I 've observed is that, in Hong Kong, you have no choice for housing. Housing is a kind of basic need, but people here are being forced to different poor condition housing, how can we improve the urban liveability if it's in this condition? So, in view of the government goal, it's said they would like to make Hong Kong more liveable, which aspect do you actually find to have the highest importance of urgency for improvement.

Ms Lai: Urgency...Um...It's hard to prioritise you know. I mean I'm sure that if you asked ... the average person they would care the most about housing. Um.. Because I mean... but I think that is also one of the most difficult things to solve within the city. Um... and it's not just the fact that by Hong Kong policy as well it's affected by things like the international economic situation. And the fact that we have such a long period of a low-interest rate which makes it very cheap to buy housing as an investment compares to other kinds of investments so that it pumps up the demand and then, we have a lot of external investors who were buying apartments and leave them empty. I think all of these are things that are very hard for Hong Kong government to control even though it wanted to. So I mean, housing is always going to be a problem,Um... I think that I would basically want to focus on improving the urban environment outside of the buildings, our streets, our public spaces, our parks, waterfront, all of these open spaces.Um... because people actually, when they don't have enough space at home, they spent a lot of their life outside and if you make that environment better for them and I think that would also have an impact on the well-being.

Interviewer: Yea... So what is your viewpoint on the current debate on country park policy?

Ms Lai: That's another very tricky question. Um... my stance is that there are other lands that the government could develop before going into the country parks. Because if you start cutting off pieces of the country park then where do you stop? We'll take 5% now and then 10 years later, we'll take another 5%... it will just go on and on. It shouldn't be viewed as an easy land bank just because the government already owns it and you do not have to buy back from anyone. Um... that's basically our natural heritage. I think that there's a lot of agricultural lands where people just sort of waiting for the government to rezone it so that it could be developed. There's a lot of brownfield land that we could use it better. It's just bureaucratically and it's administratively and financially hard so the government thinks of what we can do easily and that's trying to take country parks and do reclamation.

Interviewer: Even if we developed all of our lands, we will have a density of 7000 pp/ sqm, it is already a really high density, not to mention we have a 24000pp/sqm urban density. How are we going to sustain this urban mode when the government is going to house more population?

Ms Lai: I think that I mean...Um.... It is probably necessary to build more New Towns, more infill development, Um... but i think that you should prioritize land that is already of low ecological value. And besides, if most of the country park you can develop anyways, too remote, there's no infrastructure, no electricity, no sewer line, no water, if you put all that in that buildings into dollars, so... I mean basically, you should prioritise area which are close to existing towns. Of course, it's easier said than done.

Interviewer: There is an increasing number of cities that are following this track of development, do you think this is an urban form that should be further promoted?

Ms Lai: I am not that familiar with Chinese cities myself. I get the impression that a lot of Chinese cities much more sprawl out than Hong Kong is. If they are coming from that angle, it probably does make sense to put them to go more compact. Hong Kong is already so compact and I think there's a limit to how much more compact it can get. It's basically where you starting, Um... if China is looking to becoming more compact from a position where they are already worrying about sprawl, then I think that makes sense for them, it doesn't mean that you should try to be exactly like Hong Kong but that, the principles may be right for them at the time.

Interviewer: So about the population density. Do you think the population density in Hong Kong is already exceeding the optimal? the ideal of density to make the city liveable.

Ms Lai: Um... I am pretty sure that LSE had some figures on density and urban centre, if you looked at the graph...like Hong Kong is up here and I think the only other city with the comparable density, i think Mumbai, is up here. And then New York city is down here. I think New York City is actually pretty reasonable in terms of density if you've visited it. It is dense, there are a lot of tall buildings. But it actually feels, if you walked around, you'd feel...liveable. I mean there's also housing problem, housing is very expensive. People there are living in illegal basement apartments and all sort of weird little, very tiny spaces. I mean, housing is a major problem in all major cities in the world that are financially successful but urban environment outside, it's actually pretty good, you don't feel so crowded. I think there is only one place in New York City that is as crowded as Hong Kong and that is Times Square because it's all tourists. But...Yea... I mean they have enough space while they have their pavements they don't have as many, it's not as difficult to cross the road, um... the traffic congestion yes it's a problem, but they've pedestrianized a large area of downtown. For example, Times Square and Broadway. And that has actually... I think that has reduced the traffic congestion somehow? Because traffics sort of went around and choke other routes. And if you look at the quality of the open spaces there, even if they are small, they actually tend to be more comfortable. They don't feel so ... restrictive? I think there's a lot of small things that can be done to improve the quality of the urban environment that are not that difficult but which Hong Kong doesn't do right now. Um... I think yea, New York City probably have a pretty reasonable amount of density, probably Tokyo is a reasonable amount of density.

Interviewer: So do you think that there's optimal?

Ms Lai: I don't know what the optimal is. That's the really hard question.

Interviewer: So from your personal perspective, do you think Hong Kong is now exceeding the optimal? Or we can indeed try balance it out by different means?

Ms Lai: I think probably the optimal for different places would be different. But I mean right now we can already see a lot of the negative effects of the hyperdensity on Hong Kong peoples' quality of life and well-being. We are right now, I think basically, we can probably deal with somewhat less dense? Um... I am not sure if density is the right frame to think about it. Because it might now be such a simple issue of people per square kilometres or buildings per square miles, a lot of it is qualitative, and we are not doing very well in the qualitative stuff right now. So I think we should improve that, prioritize that. Um... Rather than just simply thinking about density. Because you can build less dense, but you can build less dense very badly. Um... like... I mean, use some of our New Towns as example, some of them are less dense, but I wouldn't say that Tseung Kwan O is a really good urban environment. It's basically, the form is like basically, you've killed off all the streets, there's nothing happening in the street. It's all shopping malls. There's no vitality there. It's basically a place where people go home and sleep. So, if you are talking about density, you also have to think about the way you build the urban form.Um... I think that overseas, you have an example where they try to increase density because of too sprawl out or something. And then it was basically they got their urban form wrong and there was a failure. Um... I got a lot of the public housing in the UK where they built these big high-rise towers and a lot of open space surround them but then basically, you ended up destroying all the social relationships between neighbours and then ended up become very easy to become very dangerous and lot of criminals to move in. Or you look at the typical American town, okay it's low density but everybody stays in their houses and nobody talks with their neighbours. There's not even a pavement to walk on and then actually the people oppose to the government when they want to put on a pavement because people walked here they might be criminals. They might be more fearful. People afraid to go into parks as there are immigrants there? Those people are even more fearful.

Interviewer: Wouldn't it be the same here in Hong Kong?

Ms Lai: Well, urban design can either encourage or discourage that. I cannot necessarily change the way people think because there are just too many other factors. But the environment should encourage sort of or provide an opportunity for people to interact and to see okay, if I walk around here I am actually safe, no one is going to stab me or mugged me. Or to feel like that there are other people around so it's okay. Um... I think urban design can encourage that sort of things. But I mean, in any society you are going to get a certain number of really paranoid people.

Interviewer: Yea...I think it could be changed somehow. I like the point and your emphasis on the design.

Ms Lai: Yea. I mean Tin Shui Wai is like the Hong Kong's classic example of an unsuccessful New Town. And basically, they built it again, as a bunch of circles. That is not connected to each other and they are only connected to the Light Rail and basically, the light rail takes you to the MTR station and the shopping mall and that's it. Um... It was like they have filled some recreational facilities inside the public housing estates but those are not used as much as the once in the public park. Okay, you want to go meet up with your friends and play basketball but he lives in that development over there, and it's really inconvenient to go over there, because the entrance is over there, and his entrance is over there....(Laugh)... So there's basically, there's no gathering space there.And there are no street-level shops, all shops are inside that shopping mall.

Interviewer: I feel like Hong Kong is having less and less vibrant street life, do you find that true?

Ms Lai: I think the newer developments the less vibrant. Because it's again, the government mentality of saying we take the pedestrians off the street so that they don't get hit by cars, and then you just let all the vehicles move very quickly on the ground so that it's efficient. and then so everything is put inside the shopping mall, connected by footbridges, so you have no more street-level shops. And then the blocks got really big and when the block got really big, it's inconvenient to walk, cause everything is just so far. Well, no one wants to walk there anyway, everyone is just inside the malls. It's basically done so that it's an efficient model to sell the land because you don't have to sell it to 10 developers small plots, you just sell one big plot to one developer, easy. I mean Hong Kong, like the urban area is much is the problems we have here is also the most vital part of the city. We have the street markets, we have a lot of historical things. We have all the street level shops. You have agglomerations of similar businesses accumulating on the same street. That's actually a thing that could only happen at high densities and with short streets and small blocks and a highly permeable urban environment. And that's actually one of the most interesting things about Hong Kong. If you basically build like Tin Shui Wai, it cannot happen. Like the sort of Golden Fish Street, the Flower Market, you know the Ladies Market, all these specialist areas, they have some characters, they are interesting. They have an identity. It's not because of the architecture, it's because of the activity. If you just provide sort of urban environment, it kinds of growing organically. If you go back to the middle ages in Europe when cities are not planned, and they have all these tiny little mill streets, it's the same thing. You have one street for leather workers, and one street for butchers and one street for people who sell vegetables. It was like that and it sort of developed organically because it's the most economically efficient thing to happen. Because then, basically, a lot of people knows to go to that one place and with more choices. I think you probably need density to Hong Kong for there to be shops on every single street. If you notice, where are you in Holland? (Utrecht.) There's probably no shops in every single street. There is probably one street with all the shops on it and all the rest surrounding would be the residential area. They don't have the density to support shops in every single street. That's why it happens, they all centralised in one place. Even New York City doesn't necessarily have shops in every single street. It's because the way we built now, it doesn't accommodate them anymore. It's basically being swallowed up inside the shopping malls. Then, inside shopping malls majority of businesses they are mainly chains, big chain stores. They are not gonna rent to little independent businesses that are not selling high-value stuff. If it's a high-value boutique maybe they would rent to them.

Interviewer: Yea... and then all the small stores are being housed into a small building. Well, it's almost time. Think you so much for your time. I would get you updates when I completed my study. Thank you so much

Ms Lai: No problem.

(V) TRANSCRIPT – DR CORINE WONG (HEALTH AND WELL-BEING) Date of the interview: 20 November 2017

Name: Ms Corine Wong

Place of the Interview: Coffee shop near interviewee's office

Duration of the interview: 58 Minutes

Interviewer: Ka Sik Tong

Gender of the interviewee: Female

Profession of the interviewee: Doctor Candidate in Psychiatry, The University of Hong Kong

Professional field: Psychiatry

Previous research/projects related to this interview: Living Environment and Psychological Distress in the General Population of Hong Kong

Interviewer: Good morning. Thank you so much for accepting my interview request. Shall we start now?

Ms Wong: Sure.

Interviewer: In the compact city development debate, plenty of scholars have identified that high- density development strategy would induce health and well-being impact of residents, I knew that you had researched living environment and psychological distress in Hong Kong, would you mind to describe a bit of the result?

Ms Wong: Actually that study is my PhD research thesis, it is about how living environment may be related to the psychological distress of Hong Kong citizens. My research was divided into 3 parts, so the first part is closer to what you're researching now. We are interested in investigating on how Hong Kong citizens are currently perceiving their living environment and how this perception would be influencing their psychological health. The major finding is that both the household living environment and neighbourhood environment would have a certain influence on citizen's psychological health. During the study, I first measured the two domains: household and neighbourhood environment, and then I have measured citizen's psychological health. We have designed questionnaires for measuring the psychological distress of citizens, similar to well-being measurements, the higher the score, the worse their psychological health is. It turns out that when they have a poorer perception of their household living environment or neighbourhood environment, their well-being would as well be in poorer condition. Their psychological distress level would be higher. This would be the first outcome. Secondly, we have compared the two domains, which is the household environment and the neighbourhood environment, and wanted to see which would be more influential. We would like to see if, when household environment, we could hardly change, can a better neighbourhood environment helps to balance out the negative impact? Such as can a better neighbourhood environment reduces the psychological distress level of citizens? It turns out when one of the two domains is performing better, then the psychological distress level of citizens would be less worst. However, when both domains are not performing well, then the psychological distress of citizens would be worse. In my conclusion, I've found that neighbourhood environment would be having a very great impact and I have concluded that the government shall not only focus on improving the inner household living environment, but they shall also focus on the neighbourhood level from the public health point of view. Neighbourhood environment included their neighbourhood relationship, the neighbourhood facilities/ infrastructure and environments such as green space provision and the open area.

Interviewer: So in your research, you mainly focus on the perceived level of both household and neighbourhood environment right?

Ms Wong: Yes. We have measured the living environment from the angle of how citizen perceived it. This method brings benefits as well as disadvantages. At the earlier stage of the study, we have tried to measure the physical performance of the housing in Hong Kong, however, I have discovered that in Hong Kong, there's not so much research that has been conducted in this aspect (physical housing performance). I could not simply adopt the indicators from foreign context as we have quite unique housing form as well. So finally, I have not included that part of research in my final product. Instead, I have measured their perceived environment quality. In a lot of research, they have found that how people percept the environment is more important than the actual physical living environment. The disadvantage of this measurement method is that it is not objective. When the respondent is having a bad mood, then their perception of the environment would be poorer. It is inevitable. We could not immediately identify whether is the environment affect the psychological distress level or the other way around.

Interviewer: I also found perceived level very important.

Ms Wong: Because there is a lot of research actually stated that when you're measuring the physical environment, as a researcher, a third party, you could not actually understand the difficulties of the people who are living in this environment. I thought the transportation is convenient but for the resident, he or she may have a different feeling due to different reasons. So I believe measuring the perceived level would be a better method, which would suit our outcome better as well.

Interviewer: What kind of housing do you focus on? Or all kind of housing?

Ms Wong: We have included all kind of housing. We have visited the household one by one in person. As in 3 years ago, I have participated in a large-scale psychological health research in Hong Kong, we have 5000 participants in this research. Within these 5000 citizens, I have selected 1000 cases to further study this time. We have conducted all home-visits to interview and collected all the data. When we arrive, we would ask them to fill in the questionnaires about their household satisfaction and their neighbourhood environment satisfaction.

Interviewer: So how about in general, do people found the two domains satisfactory?

Ms Wong: Simply in terms of general satisfaction, it is different in different sectors. I have conducted various numerical analyses. I have found that public housing residents and HOS do not have a big difference, however, when they are in a poor mood, then it would influence the result. Besides, the economic status of people was found to be influencing the how you may perceive the neighbourhood. If you're living in a poorer neighbourhood, you tend to perceive the neighbourhood as a 'worse' one. So the finding here is that people's income level have an influence on how they perceive their housing as well as the neighbourhood environment.

Interviewer: Would the measurement be affected by the rent as well? As public housing, in general, have a much lower rent level to that of private housing.

Ms Wong: There's a possibility of that happening but I don't think it is very significant. Most of the poor population in my study was having a perception that they are living in a poorer condition than the others, or just found it satisfactory. However, they seldom feel like they are living in a good environment. Those who found their living environment good are mainly those who are economically well-off. Instead of including rent as a factor, I have collected data of their income level. I assume that their social economic status could be a proxy for the outcome, instead of including 'rent' in my study. However, I do think that rent and housing price would have an impact on how people perceive their living environment, and some literature had also suggested the same.

Interviewer: Do you think density has an impact on the perceived physical environment quality and mental distress?

Ms Wong: This one is for sure. Yes. I have also participated in that previous research as I have mentioned just now. During that research project, I have also done some calculations on that, which would probably be included in my next paper. I also shared that question with you in my mind, 'Do the housing size have an impact on people's psychological health?'. To research that question, I have run the correlation test by using the housing size of the 5000 respondents and their psychological distress level. And the result turns out that their housing size is correlated with depression. I have measured a lot of different aspects psychological problems, such as depression, anxiety and also other problems. Other psychological problems are found to not have a significant relationship with housing size, but only depression was found to be correlated. When they are living in a smaller, they have a tendency to depression. When I am measuring the housing size, I have taken two methods to do so, first, I have measured the absolute size of the flat, second, I have then divided the area per person, so as to come up with the figure of household area per person. I have conducted statistical analysis for both sets of figures. The first one, the absolute size, was found to be correlated to depression, while the second, the household area per person was even found to be having a greater impact on people's depression. The per person area is noted to be more important. I think this is related to the question you have mentioned. Originally, I was planning to look at the housing size only, however, I have figured out the area per person to have an even stronger impact on people's psychological health. So, I would say the density of housing and housing area is having an impact on mental distress.

Interviewer: So do you think the statement of ‘high-density environment induced health and well-being impact of residents’ a true one as observed in Hong Kong?

Ms Wong: I think this statement could be true. Aside from the work I have previously conducted, I have also interviewed plenty of Hong Kong citizens in previous research. When I was asking what would be the biggest concern from their perspective in terms of causing psychological distress, a lot of them would answer these few things. First, it is about the crowded environment, a lot would rank crowding as the first or the second item which leads to their psychological distress. Second, the living environment, this is rather a general description. The respondents usually refers to the 'dirtiness', 'are neighbours or community friendly and kind?', 'Would it be too dark at night on street?', 'Would it be safe?' such and such. Third, they valued a lot on the outside view from their own flat or housing. For example, a lot have complained that 'when we look outside, it feels so cramped and crowded'. Therefore, the question here is not simply about the living area inside. But also, when they felt like their house is already very crowded, they would ask 'would it be better if I look out?', if the outside view is providing a more spacious, open impression, then they would feel better. So if you ask me, I would say I believe that the dense environment of Hong Kong would be related to people's health and well-being. No matter it's from the angle of personal living space, as well as the outside view from their flats, I would say the impact does exist.

Interviewer: So, from your observation during your study, or interview process, do you think that the respondents have noticed or got a feeling of over-crowding in Hong Kong?

Ms Wong: It depends on which type of housing they currently resided in. When the respondents are from public housing, they would probably say so. But for those who are living in private housing, although they would say 'there are a lot of people', they do have other spaces to compensate that problem, so they won't find it to be a big problem. When those who are even richer, they won't even mention that as a problem. So as for some more extreme cases, such as those who are living in cage houses, we have also interviewed them. Unsurprisingly, they have mentioned and take over-crowding as a major trouble which is leading to their high stress level. Not only that, they also faced physical difficulties as their living space is too limited. For example, they don't even have washrooms inside their living space, so they might need to travel a long distance just to meet this basic needs. These troubles which they faced everything is further worsening their psychological conditions. I would say, for those who are more well-off, the physical living environment would be less influential in terms of affecting their psychological distress level, instead, some psycho-social factors would be of higher relevance, such as their living space is too big, they feel very lonely etc. However, for those who are less well-off, the physical attributes of their housing and living environment would be of higher influence.

Interviewer: So... What’s the biggest problem regarding physical environment concerning psychological impact in Hong Kong? (Housing size, neighbourhood, density, sunlight factor..or?)

Ms Wong: I would say it's density. From my observation during my home visits, I found that a lot of respondents concern about density. (Interviewer: population density?) Um... I think it's all-around, household density, neighbourhood density, and population are also related. They would usually describe that 'Hong Kong is very crowded' and they would also describe the density of their community/ district, besides, the household size and density is also one of the major concerns, for example, some would complain about how the family of 5 is living in such a small flat and how crowded it is. All kind of density, or just put it as the high-density environment, would be having an impact on the psychological well-being. The sense of crowdiness, in this case, would be having a major impact on people's psychological well-being. The outcome of the physical crowdiness is also, of course, important, for example, when it is more crowding, their stuffs would be dirtier, there would be a bigger chance to have arguments happened with people, or the neighbourhood would have more disputes. The most important thing remains to be their perception though.

Interviewer: So when you are doing that research, have you also identified which district would be having a more severe condition?

Ms Wong: I did but I haven't published that result. I have asked two questions, first, I have asked their subjective opinion on whether they found their current housing crowding or not. Second, I have asked whether they found the district where they are currently living in is crowded or not. So, I have asked, but I have not produced any results from that yet.

Interviewer: So from your observation, is it true that when the district have higher density, people would have a higher distress level?

Ms Wong: It is not so correlated from my opinion. Even if they are living in a very crowded district, it also depends on the housing type which they are living in, or are there any green space nearby. Besides, there are also some other factors, for example, whether they have to go to work or not, or how much time are they spending at home, there are indeed too many other factors may influence their perceptions, so if you asked me, I would say it's hard to conclude whether the physical features of the district would have a big impact on psychological well-being or not. This is yet to be my major research question, and I believed that there are too many factors that might influence the result. It is hard to identify, whether their distress is because of the physical density, or because of other factors. For example, in general, the density of the district in Hong Kong, kind of related to the socio-economic status of people as well. For example in Kwun Tong, the density is higher owing to the large proportion of public housing in the area, thus, a lot of residents could be less well-off in general. When you are less well-off, they might have been receiving a lot of stress financially already. So it could be that reason that making them having psychological distress.

Interviewer: Okay..So...In what way the urban environment in Hong Kong could be improved to relieve the psychological distress of residents in Hong Kong?

Ms Wong: I think I have mentioned it above, one of my direction... In my research paper, one of the conclusion is that the neighbourhood is very important in terms of psychological distress. I have figured out that even when your in-house environment is extremely bad if you can go out to a good neighbourhood which you found to be good and comfortable, then your psychological distress could be relieved. For an example, I always go to Tin Shui Wai, they have a wide variety of housing, they have private housing such as the Kingswood Villas, but they also have plenty of public housing, when you enter the Kingswood Villas, you would feel like, they are no longer part of Tin Shui Wai. So then I asked, even if I am staying in a really bad district which is famous for its poor planning, i.e. Tin Shui Wai, well...and indeed their public housing planning is really poor. However, when you are living in an area, where the neighbourhood is in good quality, it could be of great help to your psychological distress. In the opposite, when you are living in a district where everyone found to be very convenient, for example, Mongkok. If you are living in the city centre, for example in all those Tong Lou, then the housing quality, as well as the neighbourhood, would be pretty bad, it's too crowded. In the public health aspect, it is important to promote the importance of neighbourhood environment, to provide more neighbourhood activities, or to encourage more neighbourhood participation from residents so as to improve their neighbourhood relationships. Besides, the land usage have to be improved as well, as when you have a better land planning, you could include more green spaces, and more services, so people could get out of their home and to use these services. When they could use these services, their psychological distress could be relieved. Last but not least, their physical activities, when they always stayed at home, they would naturally have a higher level of distress. However, when they could go out and enjoy the green environment nearby, the increase of physical activities, which we found to be highly correlated to psychological distress, could have a great benefit to their psychological health. Therefore, I believe the neighbourhood quality would be of high importance and could help a lot. When the in-housing problem is wicked and hard to deal with, I believe that we could start working with the neighbourhood quality first. But, of course, the in-house quality is also a problem which the government should deal with. The housing department had a lot to do in this aspect.

Interviewer: So you mean that by improving the neighbourhood quality, it could be a good way to relieve the psychological distress, however it might not be able to solve the root of the problem right?

Ms Wong: Um... I would say... If housing problem, for example, if I am living in public housing, and I could hardly move to elsewhere, and there's five of us inside the house, it must be crowding as well. The problem is that we could hardly change this environment, the problem could not be solved by minor changes. Even if you do better interial design, it won't be much help as your are still being trapped in a really small unit. Only when you can go out, enjoy a better neighbourhood environment, it could kind of help. When you could go out during the weekends and enjoy an environment which is much more open, green and you could enjoy some sports over there. In that case, you would relieve some of the distress when you don't need to stay at home all time.

Interviewer: I understand your point. But I am really curious on how much distress would the improvement in neighbourhood help relieving the distress. For example, would housing be the root problem and the improvements in other factors could not actually help to balance out the distress?

Ms Wong: It's a good question. Indeed, I always have the same question in my mind. As for short-term, in Hong Kong, the housing policy could have barely any changes, and the environment would not have a great change. Considering the low possibility of a switch in housing policy, we are suggesting what we could do at the moment. At last, the housing problem is something that we have to deal with. In our research, we have found that the neighbourhood environment would be able to reduce the impact caused by the poor in-house environment. That's pretty clear. However, can it solely solve the problem? I don't think so. Housing is still one of the biggest factor correlating to psychological distress. It's where you stay for long and where your family is living in. So, I believe that neighbourhood could not solve them all, but at least it could provide a certain degree of relieve. Besides, this is something that is easier to do for the government, and easier for us to persuade the government to work on this aspect.

Interviewer: Hong Kong government had mentioned in Hong Kong 2030+ long-term strategy proposal that they would like to continue the high-density compact development strategy, consolidation of the urban area is expecting to rise continuously. Do you think there would be an impact on peoples’ well- being/ psychological distress? Do you have any observation on that?

Ms Wong: I think it would. I am personally very concern about whether the government would touch the green space. If they are going to use more land resources for residential housing and increasing the urban density, instead of spending those land for the neighbourhood, doing something that could help relieve the psychological distress of people, I believe that would become a really big problem.

Interviewer: What’s your opinion on the current urban density of Hong Kong, fair or too high?

Ms Wong: It depends on which area you are focusing on. Some districts would be very dense. And even inside the district, the density could be varied. When comparing to other countries, maybe to Mainland China, I would say we are still relatively high density. When other major metropolitans, for example, New York or Paris, I would say Hong Kong is of much higher density as I've observed. I would say, a lot of respondents have told me that they do not prefer this high density. It's way too high. However, they have no way than accepting this environment and they also know that the government is not going to lower the density. They can only get adapted to this environment, and think of ways to improve how they feel about it. I already knew that the environment is over-crowded, and I could only try to change something minor, such as my thoughts and my expectations. That's what they have told me.

Interviewer: So in terms of psychological distress level, do you think that a further increase in urban density would be a dangerous move?

Ms Wong: Well, I could not say if it's dangerous. However, when citizens are already facing so many stress from living, the further worsening of living environment doesn't sound like a good idea at all. Not to mention if this city is liveable or not, just to say the current living environment, I would say it's already very stressful, it's over-crowded, very expensive to live and economically unstable. Recently, I have keep in touch with some community public space work and I believe those are some good work. When neighbourhood public space is not interesting, no one would use it.

Interviewer: Given the Government goal of making Hong Kong liveable, do you think an improvement in the urban environment in concern with the psychological health of citizens urgently need improvement? In what way can we achieve that?

Ms Wong: It is important to have a better urban form, well the high-rise is way too high to a point that has a strong influence in the urban environment. This is the key to air quality or noise pollution are also related to the psychological distress level. So I believe the first thing that the government should deal with would be housing. Other elements would be greening and open spaces... If we could improve that aspect... and also for the design as well. The design of Hong Kong's public space is very, um... poor. They are all the same. I believe that the design could be very important. Even if we don't have enough space, with good designs, it could definitely help with the neighbourhood environment as well. Although in plenty of the cases I have studied, they have included some area as 'Public spaces' for the community, however, usually, they are not the green space which they would use and go to. It is important for the government to also consider what's the need of the residents and how can we build better spaces for them. Not only the area of the green space is important, but you also have to consider the usage of it. Even we have a lot of parks, they could be empty as they are not meeting people's true need. They have not considered that I would say. In my research, I have asked this question as well, 'do they find the greening in their neighbourhood satisfactory?', they would usually respond that although they can often find green spaces in their neighbourhood, they are not satisfactory at all. It implies that the current existing green spaces are not actually meeting people's need. So I would conclude that they have to design the green spaces in accordance with peoples' need, only in that way the neighbourhood environment could be improved.

Interviewer: How would you comment on the planning and urban design policies in regards to psychological distress on citizens? What aspect of these policies should be improved?

Ms Wong: I am not so familiar with that so I could not say a lot. I would say their housing policy currently, which is to make use of land inside the urban area and to turn them into residential housing is increasing the density, and that would affect the psychological well-being of residents for sure. This is something I have often observed and also mentioned by the interviewee a lot. Their concern is that building new buildings would be making the originally crowded area to be further crowded. They are also very concern about how these new buildings are destroying their view and scenery from their place. Hong Kong people in generally stressed a lot of view and scenery, when their view and scenery is being affected, they would have more complaints about the crowdiness and density. I would say the view and scenery could be an important factor in terms of affecting their perception of over-crowding. In a lot of mental health research, they have mentioned about the importance of sunlight. In Hong Kong, when you receive less sun-light in-house, the depression rate is indeed higher. So the sunlight factor is very important in this high-density high rise context. I have previously visited one housing estate in Tung Chung in the past, when some of the residents are facing the open area, with mountains, while some are facing inwards, which is darker and receiving less sunlight, it feels very different in the two units. The resident even told me that there's a big difference between the units from the same housing estate and it feels so much better in a unit with more sunlight. In terms of design, it is important for the government to listen to the opinion of the public, but I found it a pretty rare case. They don't usually do so. In private housing, the situation could be a bit better. But in public housing, the government do not usually change their approach for the citizens.

Interviewer: There is an increasing number of cities that are following this track of development, do you think this is an urban form that should be further promoted?

Ms Wong: I believe that the policy and support would be very important. When they are trying to increase the density by building more buildings, they have to consult the residents and give out the information to the residents. They have to be told about the impact of such policy, for example, more crowded environment, and they have to provide some ways to deal with the upcoming problems. In such a way, the residents would be less worried about the new change and when they would be psychologically more prepared for a more crowded environment. They would then have less distress and worry less. Some of the interviewee in our research, when they are facing changes in the neighbourhood, such as new constructions, have mentioned that they are very worried about the new changes. They have no information on how would the transportation be improved to accommodate the increasing population of the community. They worried a lot on the capacity of the community in terms of housing new population, but no one has ever told them about these changes, as well as how they are going to deal with these problems. So I think it is very important for the government to disclose this information to the residents, improving the transparency and telling them what kind of support would be given so that the residents would be less distress about that. I would say, most of these decisions are not made after consulting the residents right? They have no way to change the decision made by the government. So, at least you should try to tell them how can their life be less affected, what kind of changes they can expect to come and even there would be benefits. I think it is all about communication. Better communication would definitely help in relieving their distress.

Interviewer: That’s all for today. Thank you so much for your help!!

APPENDIX C KWUN TONG COMMUNITY EXPERT AND LOCAL RESIDENTS TRANSCRIPTS

(I) TRANSCRIPT – MR YUEN, LIVING IN KWUN TONG Date of the interview: 7 December, 2017 Name: Mr Yuen, Representative of Concern Group, Living in Kwun Tong Place of the Interview: Cafe near Interviewee's office Duration of the interview: 49 Minutes Interviewer: Ka Sik Tong Profession of the interviewee: Current Representative of Kwun Tong Concern Group, Living in Kwun Tong Professional field: Urban Liveability, local street life Previous research/projects related to this interview:

Interviewer: Thank you so much for accepting my interview request. Shall we start now?

Mr Yuen: Sure.

Interviewer: First of all, I would like to start from green space or community open space. Are there sufficient green spaces within Kwun Tong districts?

Mr Yuen: It is for sure not sufficient. In comparison to other districts, Kwun Tong has a comparative low amount of green spaces. In Hong Kong, in general we have three types of public spaces, including large scale public park, district-scale parks and street-corner resting places. We can observe that in Kwun Tong, as it is a old district, in all three categories we are pretty much lacking. Large scale park is not sufficient and usually, it is far. Most of our current green spaces could be found to be further from the city centre. Besides, as for corner park and district-scale parks, there are not a lot as well. However, old district share a unique culture that they would use their own method to create their own community public spaces, for example, they would connect up their own rooftops, and they would plant and decorate it. It may not be called as a 'green' space, but it is definitely a kind of public space usuage. However, we can observe that the Kwun Tong urban renewal project is trying to eliminate this kind of spaces.

Interviewer: So you believe that the urban renewal project is disturbing the original pattern of public space usage?

Mr Yuen: When we look into public spaces, we have to look into quantity as well as quality. We can observe that inside the renewal project, in general, the quantity, the number of public spaces would increase. However, the problem is about the quality. As we can observe... Well, have you read "The Death and Life of American Cities", one of the most important concept is 'city ballet', street life is very important. It is the interaction of the community. However, in the new public spaces, they no longer provide spaces for such local, street level businesses. Street level businesses could bring people together. However, in the renewal plan, they are doing an aggrade design, making the public space a platform. Besides, they are doing pedestrian seperation in their plan, transforming spaces into channels. Place is different from space, where space refers to somewhere without attatchment and value, people would treate it as a channel. In the renewal plan, we can observe that they are creating more channels to divert pedestrian flow, instead of gathering people together.

Interviewer: So, are you opposing the pedestrian seperation policy in Kwun Tong?

Mr Yuen: Yea. Pedestrian seperation, in Western countries, it is the 60s planning. Like how Jane Jacobs have been criticizing this kind of large scale, pedestrian seperation design. It is the old design which we could only find back in the 1960s or 70s in the U.S. I would say it is already proven to be failure.

Interviewer: Have you heard of some local opinion on this kind of design? What kind of public spaces are needed from the local perspective?

Mr Yuen: To the local residents of Kwun Tong, you can actually observe how they use those public spaces. They will seldom talk about that, but you could observe. We would intrepret that as a kind of 'spatial practice', how people practically use the spaces is a very important signal, or representation of space. You can observe how they use the spaces in Kwun Tong. In common, you would be able to find people gathering on streets, inside the shops, or along the Kwun Tong Promenade. So you can actually observe instead of asking. One good example is that, at the APM mall, there's a rooftop park where people never used. Those kind of spaces are not popular at all. By comparing so, you could be able to know what kind of spaces are needed while what kind are not. One good example is that, just a few months ago, Kwun Tong Yue Man Square's Mcdonald's was shut down. There are more than 500 people went there on the last day of business to commenmorate this shop. Although it is not a commonly said or defined public space, Mcdonald's, in the situation where we have very limited public spaces in Hong Kong, is a very unique kind of public space. There were a lot of social activities happening inside that chain resturant. The problem is that after the closing of the shop, the huge space is empty. We would ask, if there's not enough spaces for the local people, could you transform that empty space for some temporary usuage? However, obviously they are not considering that. The government just discontinued the contract and enclosed the space now, which is very regretful.

Interviewer: I have observed that there are not much people with younger age would spend time in the parks, what would be the reason behind that?

Mr Yuen: It is kind of related to the job... Well, if you go to Yue Wah Street Park, you can find plenty of kids using the parks. It is related to the history of the place. For example, in Tsuen Wan, there's a park namely the Dak Wah Park, outside the park, they have built a wall to surround the park. So, people passby from the outside could not actually observe what is happening inside. To a certain extent, this kind of design is frightening people. In the past, Yue Man Square looks pretty much the same to that park, there's walls or fences to fence up the park, which is creating fears among people. If you have read the book 'City of Culture', it is talking about similar things. If someone could not know what is happening inside the park, it would create fear and they would tend not to use such spaces. Comparing Yue Wah Street Park and Yue Man Square public space, Yue Wah Street Park is more popular to kids and citizens, and not only elderly are visiting. Another thing is that Hong Kong people usually work long hours and are pretty busy, they could hardly spend their time inside the public spaces. Besides, a lot would ask what they can do inside such public space. As in Hong Kong, a lot of restrictions are being posed on public space usage. For example, If you sing in a park you would be warned. You could never do a public speech inside these parks as well. So the possible activities to be done inside the parks is very limited. This policy is also kind of limiting people's imagination on public spaces. Therefore, a few reason behind this phenomenon, first, it's the design , then it's about the long work schedule, last, it's the public space culture.

Interviewer: Yes, thank you. Then... do you think the green spaces are meeting the needs of Kwun Tong Residents?

Mr Yuen: Of course not. The design could be so much better. For example, when you enter Shuk Wo Street that area, you could have plenty of shops with people gathering. You could definitely achieve the 'Street Ballet' as mentioned by Jane Jacobs with a better design in that area. In comparison, Tsuen Wan is doing a pretty good job in that terms. Their streets are much wider. Besides, I would like to look into the industrial district, in the past, industrial area was set up to fulfil the garden city ideal, where people work inside the industrial area and then live and reside inside the urban centre. However, now the urban centre is undergoing the urban renewal progress, so they are removing plenty of population away. Then, the industrial area was no longer having any active industries, instead, that area had grown into an active business area. However, the problem is that those who work inside the business area are mainly from outside, from other districts. Kwun Tong residents are not working inside these areas. In this case, we can observe a space separation here. In this condition, I believe that public spaces could act as a connector here, where they can bring back people from the residential area to visit the industrial zone, vice versa. It is not like we have no space, instead, it is that the current street or road is not so walkable, for example, there are plenty of people would like to visit the Kwun Tong Promenade. However, the problem is that the walking experience from the city centre to the Promenade is not good in general. It is pretty inconvenient. That's the problem. It is about how we can plan our space. Our space and planning of the city have not changed in accordance with the shift in economic transformation. It doesn't mean that you have to remove something. Instead, it is about how you can do some minor changes to connect spaces or places. Just talking about public spaces, the quantity, is not enough, it is also important to focus on the surrounding and how you connect up such spaces. It is also important to look into the role of public space in terms of balancing the population distribution.

Interviewer: So I would start asking you some questions on transportation. Do you find the transportation services efficient & affordable?

Mr Yuen: If you talk about the transportation fees, it is alright. However, if you're talking about the accessibility or convenience of the transportation system here...Um... I think that some transportation possibilities are being wasted. For example, ferries. Kwun Tong to Hong Kong Island, if we go by road traffic, it must be highly congested. However, ferries or sea transport would be a cheaper way and faster way to head to the Hong Kong island. The question is how to connect it up. However, we yet to see the government working on that issue. For general fares for road transport, they are pretty affordable, but the issue here is the congestion problem. Even inside Kwun Tong district, we have plenty of congestion problems all day. I won't say it is a very good transportation system inside the district owing to this reason. However, the fees, compared to elsewhere, such as the U.S., of course, you can count that as cheap.

Interviewer: Do you think the public transportation system in Kwun Tong is in good condition? Is it efficient?

Mr Yuen: In fact, the biggest problem is the congestion problem. Especially in the inner urban area. So I won't say that it is very efficient. Kwun Tong is in the category of CBD II, but in fact, Kwun Tong is going to be transformed to CBD I. A lot of large-scale first level business office towers would be located in this district. So, Kwun Tong is actually providing plenty of high-level office towers even now, however, in terms of the transportation system, we are still having the old transportation system which was designed in the old times for the old industrial district, where people reside and work inside the same district. This mismatch is the major cause of the very low efficiency of the transportation system. And also, in Kwun Tong District, we are lacking of economic diversity. Kwun Tong is also, similar to Sha Tin, had become a bedroom community. People who reside here just sleep here, while those who work here would leave the district after work. The problem of being a CBD is that...Have you been to Brazil? St. Paulo, after 7 pm, this biggest CBD in South America, had turned into an urban slum. Of course, Kwun Tong is not as problematic, however, the problem is that after 6 or 7 pm, the industrial district would turn into an empty, and kind of fearful environment. No one is living inside. So, it is about how can we bring back the population to that area.

Interviewer: So in the renewal plan, the government is planning to build a large transportation hub in the urban centre, can this policy relieve the current transportation problem of the district?

Mr Yuen: It is definitely not related. For example, Lam Tin District provides a good example of a large- scale transportation hub. It is one point where we can find the worst air quality in Hong Kong. A public transportation hub, one problem is that it is going to pollute the air, the Urban Renewal Bureaux also knew that it is going to be bad, so they said they are going to work on air conditioning in the area. In the past, Kwun Tong is a very busy district with a pretty well-connected transportation system. Different parts of it are being connected by different kind of public transportations, such as Mini-buses, they are connecting up different street corners to each other. The mini-bus system help connecting different markets or business areas with each other and therefore bringing the population to those corners. This can help to disperse the population inside the urban centre, and it could also help to make the district viable. If we only have businesses in the central street, then the rent would rise and small businesses could hardly survive. With this system, smaller businesses in outer corners would be able to survive as well. However, under the new planning of large transportation hub in the city centre, they are introducing the 'pedestrian separation'. The pedestrian flow which is being connected by the small- scale public transportation would be disturbed. The transportation planning in that plan, I would say, is not considering the pedestrian. Instead, they are overly concern about the cars, the transportation flow only. I believe that 'walkability' is also one key point in liveability. This thing should be considered together with the car flow. However, we can't see that they are considering that. Instead, we can only see how they are going to make pedestrians walk on the elevated platforms, while cars are running on the ground. The days where street life could be vibrant with both pedestrians and cars could no longer be seen.

Interviewer: How about the walkability of the district before the urban renewal?

Mr Yuen: Well originally, the street in the district is very narrow. Therefore, they ended up to be pretty crowded. I won't say it's very walkable. However, the streets are very interesting as they have a lot of different shops and diversity, which making people enjoy staying on streets. Of course, sometimes they could be pretty crowded. However, there would be a lot of events happening on the streets. For example, there's always a few days in the year which we would celebrate The Hungry Ghost Festival... On Yan Oi Street, we had howkers market in the morning and dai pai dong at night time. There is more flexibility for people to use the spaces. However, this kind of flexibility would be almost impossible in large-scale shopping malls. So in conclusion, the walkability of the district is not about how wide or narrow are the streets, instead, it is about the street diversity. The urban renewal is kinda damaging this kind of vibrancy and diversity. After renewal, you can observe that none of the original street shops could survive. A lot of street shops are being reallocated to the underground market. In the past, street shops are part of the street life, however, in the coming future, they would be placed to form a purely commercial space.

Interviewer: I have observed that there are long queues on streets waiting for transportation, do you think that the public transportation is inefficient? Or the capacity of the transportation is overloading?

Mr Yuen: Actually they are saying that the population growth would not be a radical one. However, the problem is that they are trying to reconstruct the Kwun Tong city centre into a fortress, a fortress design. There's a book called 'City fortress', which is talking about these kinds of fortress design. The current fortress which they are planning is not designed for the local people to use. If you observed the planned pedestrian flow, they flow to the fortress is mainly coming from the MTR station, so in the future, people from other districts, instead of getting into the inner part of the district, they would probably be staying inside the fortress. In the future, the most crowded place would be the MTR station. Those people, would just treat Kwun Tong as a channel.

Interviewer: So do you find the current local transportation system reaching its saturation point?

Mr Yuen: Basically it's already saturated under the currently existing infrastructure. You can see that upon the recent completion of On Dat Estate, it would bring a big pressure on the local transportation system. The transportation problem would probably be worsened. People from On Dat Estate would most probably by-pass Kwun Tong city centre in many cases.

Interviewer: Do you think this would affect the livability of Kwun Tong?

Mr Yuen: Definitely yes. For example, when you are always crowding inside the buses...the overcrowding is definitely a problem. And.... Um... There are too many people here. Kwun Tong is one of the densest urban areas, the density is already having a negative impact on the livability.

Interviewer: So do you feel like the density in Kwun Tong is already too high? Is it exceeding the optimal?

Mr Yuen: I won't say... I don't really know how much is good. Singapore is also in very high density, but they have more land resources than we do. Of course... I would say... The problem is the diversity. From the perspective of people from the grassroots, the consumption pattern is very limited, and there are not much choices. My main concern would be the hardships to make a living. Well... of course, density is also a concern, like what I have said before, the key is how to allocate and balance the population distribution, such as how to bring people to the industrial area of the district as well. Can we make the population more evenly spread over the district so as to prevent overcrowding in the city centre?

Interviewer: Social infrastructure, such as medical facilities, schools, offices, or government institutions, are they sufficient and accessible?

Mr Yuen: We are going to have a new Kwun Tong City Hall. Well, if you asked me, I feel like, we are not lacking of the 'hardware'. Instead, the problem is about the management of these infrastructures. For example, what can we do inside the parks? Yuet Wah street park, at the night, if you want to sing with a mic, you need to go through all the administrative process to apply for permission. And inside the urban area... there's lack of walking space... and they are planning to transform the original spaces into shopping malls. When the government is removing all the street shops, local shops so and so, they have created the problem that... Okay, the elderly problem they relied on the NGOs...In all the new spaces, in the city of fortress, the neighborhood culture would be hard to be built. Those area which allow easier communication and facilitating community bond would be hard to be formed inside the fortress. So, it's not about the hardware... It's not about how many more elderly centre or NGOs to be built. The government is used to look into the problem only from the quantity side. However, I would like to suggest to look into the design of the space instead. Can we have more streets? More street shops? or somewhere which allow the local resident to gather? You're now removing the historical basis of the community, and it would definitely affect the identity of the community here in Kwun Tong. We would probably lose our own identity here. For the younger generation, they may no longer have the reason to stay in this neighbourhood. These things are more important.

Interviewer: So moving on to the housing section. How would you describe the housing condition in Kwun Tong?

Mr Yuen: Well... This district is pretty... pretty...I should say Kwun Tong is the first batch of towns which have adopted the zoning system. So you can observe that this district is... We need more sub-centres in the town. Ngau Tau Kok as an example, it is kind of a sub-centre in the past, where people living in the Kwun Tong centre would also go visit. However, under the changes now happening, I can no longer observe this happening. They are building more and more shopping malls in Kwun Tong, well... I am not saying that shopping malls are bad. However, it is always good to have more choices given.

Interviewer: Do you think residents, in general, are satisfied with the housing condition in Kwun Tong? In terms of size and affordability?

Mr Yuen: Housing... Under this condition, the housing are segregated in the district. I mean... public housing would stick together. Currently, it's still pretty okay as people from different social status are living in the same neighbourhood. However, in upcoming futrue, the planning of the new urban centre is creating social segregation where those wealthier people would occupy the centre area. The problem is that, in the future, after urban renewal, the social segregation would be intensified. In the past, it is easier to observe a more diversified society. This would be a big problem.

Interviewer: Then... Are local residents worrying about the intensfying social segregation?

Mr Yuen: To the local residents, they knew that the housing price would grow to an unacceptable level after urban renewal. It is pretty obvious for them.

Interviewer: In general, do people in Kwun Tong have sufficient living space?

Mr Yuen: The whole Hong Kong do not have sufficient living space. It is hard to say if Kwun Tong residents have sufficient living space as Kwun Tong is also part of Hong Kong. It must not be sufficient. Subdivided housing... we have a lot. Kwun Tong is lacking of newer housing estate instead. Well, but that's also related to the lack of land supply in the district. So it's very hard to say.

Interviewer: So only from the physical living area...

Mr Yuen: Well, it must not be sufficient. Under the whole social atmosphere, well, the I won't say it affects liveability by a lot. As everyone shares the same problem, small living area. Well, when everyone shares the same problem, it feels less bad right?

Interviewer: How about pollution problem?

Mr Yuen: Well in the past it was, of course, a very big problem. It is inevitable to have air pollution inside an industrial town. But nowadays, it's a lot better. But still, the huge amount of traffics, or the high dense living environment is still playing a role here. Pollution problem exists. I won't say it's at the worst stage though.

Interviewer: How about noise pollution?

Mr Yuen: it's mainly come from cars, but it's still ok.

Interviewer: Can you observe any impact of the physical environment on health and well-being of residents living in this district? Do you think the dense, compact environment have an impact on residents’ health and well-being?

Mr Yuen: If you asked me, well, of course, living in other districts, such as Tai Po, it must be much better. Tai Po is closer to country parks, with a lot more greening area... Well the problem is that...I think it is about the balance. Kwun Tong is more convenient in transportation. Yes it is pretty crowded, but still it is not as crowded as Mongkok or Central. Well, of course, the huge amount of traffic flow and overcrowding environment must have some impact on health and well-being. United Hospital is always crowded and full of people. It is one of the most crowded hospitals in Hong Kong. It is pretty hard for the grassroots to get health care services under this condition.

Interviewer: So, you believe that good transportation could be able to balance the negative impacts brought by the high-density environment?

Mr Yuen: Yes. The good transportation... and the diversity of life. For example, Sai Kung, the air quality is good but it's really far right? Ma On Shan, transportation is good, air quality is good but then you will be lack of art elements. Kwun Tong, you can go up to some industrial buildings for some local art gallery, or studios. Transport and diversity of life is some very good points. And also the living cost is relatively low. Kwun Tong has plenty of wet markets and allows you to shop in lower cost. So I feel like it's okay. There's a balance here.

Interviewer: So do you mean before urban renewal?

Mr Yuen: Yea.. Well I won't say everything is better in the past. For example, many are living in the really poor environment. The safety was not good as well, it was getting better starting from the 80s though. It's not the best, but at least you can observe social fabrics, diversity and vibrancy in the community.

Interviewer: So you believe that the original district has reached a good balance. How about after the urban renewal, do you think the balance would be affected?

Mr Yuen: Well, it must be about the fabric and the diversity. On the other hand, the social segregation would also be a problem. The polarization of space is also a concern.

Interviewer: Do urban renewal bringing more benefits to the local community or do you believe that the harm brought by it would be greater?

Mr Yuen: Well, Kwun Tong never lacks shopping malls. Instead, what we need is an interesting and diversified urban centre. The current problem is that, in this largest scale urban renewal project. As a local, we could only choose from all shopping malls or keep the original state. We do not have a third proposal. The problem is that we have no choices. When keeping the original state is hardly possible, the only option left for us is to accept the all shopping mall proposal. We have no choice, so we have to accept the fact and trying to get adapted to it.

Interviewer: So the liveable balance, which you have mentioned above, would be broken?

Mr Yuen: It would basically be disappeared. Kwun Tong would simply, become a 'name of the MTR', the uniqueness of it would no longer be seen.

Interviewer: As for planning and design, what kind of improvement do you think is necessary in terms of planning and design in the district?

Mr Yuen: As I have mentioned above, the roads are too narrow. We have to many commercial towers here. The government is working on 'smart city', right? But that is not something as simple as the slogan itself. One key thing in 'smart city' is to allow more participation in the governance of the city. Voting... or data transparency... such and such. However, 'smart city' is becoming a gimmick now. Another thing that is very important is that how to coordinate the once separated residential community and the industrial area community... A lot of places are also facing the same problem. When the Hong Kong government is simply thinking to clear it up, the other governments approached the problem differently. Beijing had also converted the old industrial district into 798 art district, right? They should try to think beyond just clearing it up.

Interviewer:Do you think residents’ opinion is being heard in the planning process?

Mr Yuen: Well of course not. As Hong Kong planning is solely a black box process. A lot of professionals involved. Besides, the general citizens are not knowledgeable in terms of planning as well. They could not understand the technical jargons, 'plot ratio' or 'setback'... They do not understand at all. The problem is that, under this 'black box' system, the community participation is very limited. They usually just provide us a few options. Back in 2008, for the urban renewal plan, they have also simply selected three and ask us to comment on those three. However, three of them are all the same. The government and the citizens, on the 'participatory ladder', we are remaining in the 'informing' level. Kwun Tong residents have almost 0 participation in deciding how the urban renewal would look like. We can only express our opinion by protests. That's it.

Interviewer: So lastly, I would ask some question on overall density and liveability.Do you think the population density is optimal in Kwun Tong? Or do you find it overpopulated?

Mr Yuen: It is definitely overly populated. The growing population is also a growing concern.

Interviewer: The urban renewal project, as well as plans, shows that they are planning to build more high-rise and residential buildings in the district, do you think the current infrastructure could support this further development?

Mr Yuen: of course NOT. The infrastructure is already over-pressured right now. It's already overriding its carrying capacity.

Interviewer: Since the urban regeneration project have started, are there any impact on residents’ daily life?

Mr Yuen: The city centre, Yue Man Square had now turned into a dead city, it is very inconvenient for local people. Renewal is not only a few years problem, instead, it is going to last for 10 to even 20 years. We have to live with such an empty urban centre for at least 5 to 6 more years. The impact is very obvious. It's bringing more troubles in transportation as well. A lot of things should be planned ahead. You do not have to wait for urban renewal to do everything. But the government have not done so. The local inner transportation system is a mess now.

Interviewer: Overall, how would you evaluate the living environment here in Kwun Tong, is it liveable or not liveable from your viewpoint?

Mr Yuen: It is, from my personal viewpoint.

Interviewer: From your experience, which area should the government start to work on in order to make Kwun Tong more liveable?

Mr Yuen: Liveability...In Hong Kong, it could be hard for us to solve all those practical problems. However, the population in Hong Kong is not necessarily growing by a lot in coming years. Under the condition where the population growth is slowing down, I believe that there are some more possibilities and you have to think about it. Urban Renewal Bureaux had to change its mindset. Urban renewal does not have to trigger gentrification. The property market-led policy of the government is very troublesome, and I believe that they should listen to the citizen opinion. Our living space, indeed, keeps dropping, the space that we have nowadays is even less than inside a prison. Of course, there is something that Hong Kong did pretty well. Such as country parks, Hong Kong people have a really high average square meter of country parks. We are ranking in the world 4th. The country park is something good then why should we damage it. While the living space per person could hardly undergo any radical improvement, there are still plenty of things that you could work on, for example, social fabric, pollutions... They can work on more different aspects.

Interviewer: Thank you so much for your time. That's all for today's interview.

(II) TRANSCRIPT – MS IP

Interviewer: Thank you so much for coming today. My interview is divided into 8 parts. First, I would like to start with local green or open space. Are there sufficient green spaces within Kwun Tong districts?

Ms Ip: Umm... Not really sufficient. It's really difficult to find a sports ground. That one in Kowloon Bay is located inside the industrial area, it is very far and inconvenient.

Interviewer: How would you evaluate the quality of these green spaces/parks?

Ms Ip: There's too little. I don't even remember when was my last time visiting. I seldom use these spaces. Or I should say I haven't recognized these spaces in my neighbourhood.

Interviewer: How about Kwun Tong Promenade?

Ms Ip: I did visit sometime. But from my place to the Promenade takes me around 30 minutes. It's a bit far. In general, we do not have sufficient open space in my neighbourhood. Most of them are pretty far. I feel like they should bring these spaces inside the residential area rather than placing them in the industrial area. Those parks in Kowloon Bay are located inside the industrial area. The Kwun Tong Promenade is also located inside the industrial part of Kwun Tong district. Well... I live in the residential area right? Why would I travel to the industrial part just to use the public spaces?

Interviewer: How about the design?

Ms Ip: Well, in terms of design, I feel like these public spaces could not provide me anything special. I mean, I do not have to travel that far just for seats. Usually what I need is just some seats... When the parks have nothing special and they required me to travel that far, as a result, I would not go there purposively.

Interviewer: Then, where would you socialize, or spend time with your friends?

Ms Ip: I would usually go inside to restaurants, cafes or even my friend's place, then looking for somewhere on the street.

Interviewer: As for transportation, do you find the transportation services efficient & affordable?

Ms Ip: It's pretty convenient. However, during rush hour, the service is not ... that good. They have the routes, however, I could not use it. Or I have to spend even longer time on buses than taking the metro. Mainly, it's because of congestion and also the design of the route. As my place is usually located at the mid-point of most bus routes, during rush hour, I could hardly get on the buses. If I could not get on one, then I have to wait for another 10 minutes for the next. It always happens. For example, the bus which I usually take, 13X, is running from Bo Tat residential district to my location, Lok Wah. It's quite often that I could not get on the bus. I have also heard that there's going to be more new housing estate to be built very soon, so I am pretty worried about that. I think that it's already pretty full.

Interviewer: Do you think that the transportation in general, is comfortable?

Ms Ip: Well....I know that it is easier to put all transportation at one mid-point would be convenient for people to transfer and ride. However, I think it is necessary to think about the capacity of the place. For instance, for me to transfer every day in Kwun Tong city centre, it is always congested over there. I would not like to go there, to be honest, just that I do not have a choice. These are all problems. For example, during rush hours, like...7 or 8 pm, I have to wait in a long line for minibuses, the line could be as long as 300 meters. While the ride is only 15-20 minutes, the time I spent on waiting in the queue is just nonsense.

Interviewer: How about MTR, is it walkable from the station to your home.

Ms Ip: Yea... It is walkable. It took me around 25-30 minutes to walk home, but the point is it's a pretty steep slope. Still, sometimes, I have to walk due to the unreliable transportation. As for MTR, well I feel like it is much more efficient than buses where road traffic is heavily influencing its reliability. I usually take the MTR... However, to be honest, my workplace is not very accessible by MTR. I have to ride 40- 45 minutes Metro, excluding the time that I have to spend in order to reach the MTR station. However, by bus, it should only take me 30 minutes to reach my destination. I have to choose MTR simply because I can never predict the road traffic. I can not predict the congestion. This is making me choosing the predictable MTR, although I have to spend much more time on that.

Interviewer: Where do the congestion usually happens?

Ms Ip: In the morning, at around Yue Man Square, there would be the first congestion. Then, the buses at Kwun Tong bus terminal is always not on time, or they are full before arriving my stop. I can't see the bus or I can't get on the bus. I am not sure if it's because of the congestion inside the Kwun Tong industrial area... The congestion is happening inside the district.

Interviewer: Do you expect any impact/benefits on transportation of the district upon urban renewal in central Kwun Tong and further completion of residential housing estates across the district?

Ms Ip: I expect it would get better. They said they would build more public transportation facilities... such as more stops? Like what I have mentioned, I would like to see a better arrangement of bus stops. So at least I can have more clues on where to line up.

Interviewer: How about the social infrastructure, such as medical facilities, schools, offices, or government institutions, are they sufficient and accessible?

Ms Ip: From my own perspective... Not sufficient. Well... most of the office workers, including me, only need somewhere to work out and do some sports. If I want to jog, well, I could not find a proper sports ground, so I end up jogging on street. The problem is, the street is too packed and the air is highly polluted. I don't feel comfortable jogging out there. So I would say facilities are definitely insufficient. If I want a sports centre, I have to go to other districts for that, it took me 30 minutes of transit time to go there. I am living in public housing... I feel like, public housing estates are so densely packed with people... when serving that huge population, you should have more facilities, however, turns out we do not even have the basics.

Interviewer: Do you think the social infrastructures inside this district are highly utilized? Is there anything that you wish to have in this district?

Ms Ip: From what I observed, no. I guess there's a mismatch between the needs of people and the supply. What I wish to have... Hmm... I would say sports facilities... and public spaces. I wish I could have more space to do my own things, sports... or other. I need those space. Medication is fine. I have a big hospital located right next to my house. So it seems like it's okay.

Interviewer: How would you describe the businesses and convenience living in this district in terms of satisfying daily needs?

Ms Ip: It's pretty convenient. Despite in rush hours, there would be too many people.

Interviewer: Will you expect that the urban renewal may lead to any potential change in the business, convenience in this district in terms of satisfying your daily needs?

Ms Ip: Definitely. As I have mentioned above, I have to visit Kwun Tong centre every day for interchanging. However, the construction work is creating a lot of troubles and congestion problems. It is not going to be done very soon...

Interviewer: How would you describe the housing condition in Kwun Tong?

Ms Ip: Too crowded? Too dense... I am living in public housing estate, and surround my estate are all housing. In the past, I have lived in different districts, such as Sha Tin, Wong Tai Sin... In comparison, in Kwun Tong is always people..people and people. After all the people, I will reach the shopping mall, but then, what does shopping mall mean? It means people, people and people again. Nothing more. When comparing to my living back in Sha Tin, although back then the transportation is not as good and convenient, it was so much more comfortable. From the perspective of a good living environment... For example, in Sha Tin, is so much easier for me to find some nice public spaces, all the parks are very close to home. This kind of differences makes me hard to get used to Kwun Tong. It is not as comfortable.

Interviewer: Are you satisfied with your housing condition in Kwun Tong? In terms of size and affordability?

Ms Ip: If I could, of course, I would like to live in better housing. It is way too small, and the surrounding environment is too dense. The housing environment from my perspective is not so comfortable.

Interviewer: Living Space is one of the problem of high-density development, are you satisfied with the amount of private living space that your have? Why or why not?

Ms Ip: I don't. I am just trying to get adapted to it. It is around 300 sq ft for 3 people. We don't even have a room. In order to give myself some private space, I have to do some separation by using the furniture. After deducting the space for kitchen and toilets, the private housing space for each of us is extremely limited. Very little.

Interviewer: How about the rent of it?

Ms Ip: As I am currently living in public housing, the rent is affordable. However, if I want to go out and rent a place, it is almost impossible. For example, if I want to rent a flat, it usually cost me more than 10 thousand hkd per month (1041 EUR), that's almost all of my earnings. I can never pay that.

Interviewer: Have you experienced the light, noise or air pollution problem in Kwun Tong?

Ms Ip: More or less. For noise, owing to the fact that I am living in public housing, there are a lot of housing units on the same floor. It is inevitable to be affected by the noise from surrounding flats. But for light pollution, it's not very bad.

Interviewer: Do you find the environment in this district pleasurable to stay or in the opposite might cause you any mental distress? What do you find to be the most stressful to live in this district and wish to be improved as soon as possible?

Ms Ip: I would prefer to move back to somewhere like Sha Tin. This district is not as comfortable as Sha Tin. Although it seems like the transportation is much better in this district, my living environment and quality are suffering. It's even worst that the transportation, although seems to be better, is not as good as it seems. Stress... The living environment would bring me stress. You know, when you got off work, you might just want to stay at home and rest. However, I do not have enough space for that and I do not feel like staying inside is 'a rest'. Turns out I would just spend my time outside, to find somewhere to stay and relax. This is another kind of 'stress', as I have nowhere to relieve my stress.

Interviewer: Do you think the Kwun Tong urban planning is meeting your need? How about the urban renewal plan?

Ms Ip: No... Well, I am still a newbie in this district, when I arrive it already looks like the way it is. So I don't really feel like I could change anything. Well, I wish through the renewal, they could improve the transportation situation here. Well, the density is never something that could change, but I feel like it is necessary to provide more spaces for people. During the renewal, I am hoping to see more open spaces alongside with all the new high rises.

Interviewer: Do you know that Kwun Tong is the district with highest population density? What’s your personal experience with density here?

Ms Ip: There are a lot of queues and a lot of people. Compare to other districts where I have lived before... You know when I first arrived Kwun Tong, I have not expected to wait that long for a minibus. I mean around 5 minibuses. The wait was crazy.

Interviewer: Since the urban regeneration project have started, is there any impact on your daily life?

Ms Ip: I can't feel it yet.

Interviewer: What does it mean to be ‘liveable’ from your viewpoint? Can you define the term?

Ms Ip: At least I could have my own space. Not to mention public space or the other thing, if I have more space at home, then I never have to go out to find spaces, right? The problem is that I do not have my own space at home, and then I have to go out for public spaces. Turns out public spaces are also insufficient... It is very disappointing. If I am moving to elsewhere, I would definitely concern on private space first.

Interviewer: Overall, how would you evaluate the living environment here in Kwun Tong, is it liveable or not liveable from your viewpoint?

Ms Ip: Well, having somewhere to stay in Hong Kong is already an achievement...Haha... It is hard to find somewhere to live.

Interviewer: Overall, how would you evaluate the living environment here in Kwun Tong, is it liveable or not liveable from your viewpoint?

Ms Ip: Transport... Well, if they actually want to make the city liveable, I feel like they should work on the housing/flat size. The residential area is very essential. Sha Tin, as an example, although transportation is not as good, I would still prefer to move back owing to the much better living environment. Private living space is my top priority. Transportation could not compensate my lost in private living space. My housing, living environment would be the first thing in mind for me other than transportation.

Interviewer: From your experience, which area should the government start to work on in order to make Kwun Tong more liveable?

Ms Ip: Sha Tin. It is more comfortable. And I can keep a good distance from the crowd. I would choose to live in somewhere less dense.

Interviewer: What are your future intentions about staying or leaving this neighbourhood?

Ms Ip: Yes. I would leave. I would prefer to move back to Sha Tin.

Interviewer: If you have the power, or money, would you choose to move elsewhere that is different to the environment of Hong Kong? Why and why not?

Ms Ip: Of course I would. Living environment is very important for me. As I have observed other countries would have a much better living environment, which would be more comfortable than Hong Kong. Even Mainland China would be good. At least the housing would be more spacious.

Interviewer: That's all for today. Thank you for your time.

(III) TRANSCRIPT – MS CHAN Interviewer: Thank you so much for accepting my interview request. Would you mind first describing your living environment first?

Ms Chan: I am now living in Po Tat, situated in some hills above Kwun Tong city centre. And going further up from my home, you could find the huge development site at Anderson Road, that is a newer development site. There are a lot of people moving in.

Interviewer: In today's interview, I would ask you questions concerning 8 areas. First, I would start with questions about local community spaces and green spaces. Are there sufficient green spaces in your neighbourhood?

Ms Chan: If you are asking about my neighbourhood, in general, it's pretty sufficient. In my housing estate, there are only 8 high-rises in total. And there're more than 3 parks serving these 8 high-rises. There's even a badminton court for teens to play badminton. In the ground floor, there's also a public square, where you can find some elderly hanging-out over there. In the outer-skirt of our neighbourhood, there's a large open space where a lot of old ladies would visit in the morning to dance, sports and playing Taiji.

Interviewer: How about you? Would you use these spaces?

Ms Chan: Well. I won't...Haha. For parks, unless I am bringing my nephews around, I usually won't visit those places. While... for those open space, there is nothing interesting happening over there which could attract people to stay. Most of those open space is just 'empty space'.

Interviewer: So you do not feel like you would have the needs for public spaces as well? For example, to hang out with friends in these spaces?

Ms Chan: However, my friends do not usually live close to me. We usually would hang-out in somewhere in the middle, where we could spend time in cafes or restaurants. I do not have many friends living in this area. If I'm hanging out with them, then we may go to local restaurants or stay at home. We do not usually stay at those public spaces.

Interviewer: Then, are there any aspect of these public spaces that you think it has to be improved?

Ms Chan: I do not have much needs in terms of public space, so I do not think that I have any. As for the current usage, I found it pretty fine as the district councillor would organize activities for the elderly and children to have fun quite often.

Interviewer: As for transportation, do you find the transportation services efficient & affordable in your neighbourhood?

Ms Chan: Well, transportation...efficient or not could be discussed from two aspects. The first is about are there sufficient routes to elsewhere, for that I would say yes. As for buses, I have plenty of routes to choose, for example to Tsuen Wan or Kwai Fong, it usually takes me for around half an hour... it's the same for Tsim Sha Tsui and Po Lam...By buses and mini-buses, I have plenty of choices. Even for work, I could talk a bus directly reaching my workspace. So it's pretty good. Second, I would concern on the efficiency of such transportation system. Since there are way too many cars, my spot is usually in the middle of the transportation from the further west, such as the Kwun Tong centre or Tseung Kwan O area. Therefore, when the traffic reaches my living area, it's already pretty congested. For example, in non-peak hours, from my home to Lam Tin, it may cost me 15 minutes. However, at peak hours, the minibus could take double of the time to reach Lam Tin. In addition, at peak hours, the line would be much longer. I have experienced to wait for 10 mini-buses to get on one. It is such a craze sometimes. I can show you some photos....

Interviewer: How about getting to work in the morning?

Ms Chan: It's not very convenient. The problem is that the buses are often not on time. Well... It could be because of congestion. In holidays, it might cost me around 30 minutes to reach office. However, on weekdays, due to congestion, it cost me more than an hour in order to reach the office. It's even getting worst due to the development sites in Anderson Road. Recently, they have completed the first part of the development project, which includes a large public housing estate called An Tat Estate. There're almost 10 high-rises inside that housing estate. Upon the further completion of the second part of the development project, I believe it would only get worst. Owing to the new housing estate, a lot of buses which originally had their starting station in my area, have moved their starting point to An Tat Estate. When those buses reach our neighbourhood, in a lot of time, they are already almost full. It's very difficult for us to get on the buses recently. Minibuses is a bit better as they have their starting station in our neighbourhood.

Interviewer: Then do you think that the transportation system is reaching its maximal capacity?

Ms Chan: Well. I think that they are reaching a saturation point. At least it's 98% saturated.

Interviewer: What kind of transportation do you use in daily means?

Ms Chan: Buses, minibuses and metro. It's pretty even. If you ask about my preference, it would be the buses as I really hate to be in a crowding environment. I can rest on buses, so it makes a difference. MTR is really not comfortable, scoring 2 out of 10. The only good point about metro it's about the speed. MTR... I felt like... I was being stuffed in that tiny box. You know, I have no space to stand. It's too crowding which is no longer comfortable.

Interviewer: How about social infrastructure? Social infrastructure, such as medical facilities, schools, offices, or government institutions, are they sufficient and accessible?

Ms Chan: Schools or medical facilities, I think it's pretty sufficient. There are 2 clinics and 1 dental clinic in my neighbourhood. For schools, there are plenty of kindergartens, primary and secondary schools near my neighbourhood. So it's pretty sufficient. As for sports facilities, it is insufficient. There is no sports centre near my neighbourhood. So no gym, swimming pool or badminton court. If we want to use such facilities, we have to take buses to Lam Tin. So it's pretty inconvenient. It takes me for around 20 minutes.

Interviewer: How would you describe the businesses and convenience living in this district in terms of satisfying daily needs?

Ms Chan: For daily living, it's pretty convenient cause we have plenty of supermarkets and snacks stores in our neighbourhood. And there are also plenty of restaurants.

Interviewer: As for housing, how would you describe the housing condition in Kwun Tong?

Ms Chan: In my district, the living enviornment is fine... Well, as I can have my won room. But it's not a must to have our own rooms. Inside my house, my brother could not get a room. He is kind of staying in the living space as we do not have enough rooms.

Interviewer: How about the affordability?

Ms Chan: I have tried to search for some rental options as I might want to move out. However, the rental level in Hong Kong is too high. They usually cost more than 6000 hkd (~800-900 Euros) per person if I wound like to rent some places closer to my office. They are not even some high level listing. Instead, what I am talking about is just some flat inside Tong Lou, which are really old buildings. I feel like... those flats are way too small. I would rather save that money to support my family. The rent outside is definitely too high that I guess I would stay with my family for a bit longer.

Interviewer: Have you experienced any pollution in your neighbourhood?

Ms Chan: Light pollution is a problem at my place cause the street lighting is very strong in Kwun Tong. My flat is located at the 31st floor. However, I am still affected by the lights from the ground floor. It's never absolute dark inside my place. As for noise pollution, as my place is facing tunnels, so when the traffic is busy, I would suffer from noise pollution.

Interviewer: Would you say it is comfortable to live in Kwun Tong?

Ms Chan: Um.... It's just fairly acceptable? During weekends, if I go outside, it's way too crowded.

Interviewer: Then...Do you find the environment in this district pleasurable to stay or in the opposite might cause you any mental distress? What do you find to be the most stressful to live in this district and wish to be improved as soon as possible?

Ms Chan: The biggest stress come from the transportation. I show you the photo...(showing the photo)... Once there's a typhoon signal 8, we have to go home early to get prepared. Although I was arriving the bus stop in Lam Tin a bit earlier at 4pm, I could not find my own line, the queue was WAY too long. I could not find the end of the queue. At last I have to walk home during the typhoon and thunderstorm. I have no clue. I don't know how to explain.

Interviewer: So you actually feel and recognize the stress brought by the transportation condition in the neighbourhood?

Ms Chan: Yes. There is a lot of times where I feel so stressed when I was waiting for transportation. Standing in lines for a long period of time could be uncomfortable. When every day I have to wait for minibuses to transit to MTR, and in MTR I have to be stuffed inside the crowd, I felt like the time is hardly manageable and there's a stress from that.

Interviewer: Do you think the Kwun Tong urban planning is meeting your need? How about the urban renewal plan?

Ms Chan: I would explain my experience from 4 basic aspects. First, from food. Kwun Tung has a lot of choices in terms of food. We have a wide variety of restaurants. Second, living. I think it's okay. It is a pretty vibrant neighbourhood. When I am walking to Anderson road or to Sau Mo Ping, there's plenty of interesting things happening on the street. Third, for transportation, well, I have already elaborated. There's plenty of problem, but despite those problems, in the weekend it's pretty convenient as I could reach different spot in Hong Kong quite quickly.

Interviewer: Which aspect would be the most important one from your viewpoint in terms of affecting the liveability?

Ms Chan: I think Living is the most important one, following by Eat, and then transportation. For living, I feel like the inner living area have to be larger so as to make it liveable... Wider, larger so I could feel more comfortable. For transportation, I would like to have easier assess to my workplace, or closer. For eat, I hope that there could be a wide variety of choices so my needs in eat could be satisfied.

Interviewer: Then, do you think your current neighbourhood, according to your standards, a liveable one?

Ms Chan:Um... 60%, I would score it as 60 out of 100. Most importantly is to solve those troubles in transportation. If these troubles could be solve then I would rank my neighbourhood as 85 out of 100.

Interviewer: So you would like to stay in your current district?

Ms Chan: Yea. It is pretty ok.

Interviewer: So far, do you think that your opinion have been considered by the government during the planning process?

Ms Chan: I do not have many opinions in planning...I have never considered this aspect to be honest. The only concern for me would be the transportation.

Interviewer:What does it mean to be ‘liveable’ from your viewpoint? Can you define the term?

Ms Chan: Japan. Um... The housing price is much lower... and for food, they have awesome food choices and the cost is lower than that of HK. As for transportation, the density is just right. I do not feel like it's overcrowded. I like to walk on the street in Japan. The most important thing is housing price. Secondly is that in Japan, if we go outdoor, they have a lot of nicely planned and beautiful parks which we could stay inside. But in Hong Kong, if you want to go ... for example, hiking, even for hiking, nowadays, as it's getting popular, you could expect that it would be pretty crowded on top of the hills as well. It's not comfortable even if you go to the peak of a mountain. You still feel like you're staying in Mongkok.

Interviewer: What are your future intentions about staying or leaving this neighbourhood?

Ms Chan: Um... I would like to move to somewhere where going to work could be more convenient. At least I could expect to spend less than an hour for commuting. At best less than 45 minutes. More facilities, more food choices... Where ever it's cheaper. I mean, I am not that rich so my first consideration is always the housing price.

Interviewer: How about migration?

Ms Chan: Not really. I think my family would be staying in Hong Kong. My friends too. So probably considering my social ties, I would choice to stay in Hong Kong.

(IV) TRANSCRIPT – MR CHOW Interviewer: Thank you for accepting my interview request, how did you end up to live in this district?

Mr Chow: I was previously living in Wong Tai Sin. It was the temporary housing for refugee back in the early 20th century. After that, I was being settled in Kwun Tong District, into the early 7-floor public housing. That was around 1950s.

Interviewer: Do you like it to live in this district?

Mr Chow: Of course I do. It was much better than the temporary housing which I was staying in the past. I have been living in the current place for more a few decades already. This district is pretty good. The only thing lacking is a good wet market. If I want to shop I have to walk for a long way back to the Kwun Tong city centre for the wet market. That is not so convenient.

Interviewer: How about transportation?

Mr Chow: It is fairly good already. We have MTR out there and we have buses as well.

Interviewer: How about public spaces or parks?

Mr Chow: Of course I like it a lot. There's a basketball court up there in Fu Ming Street. There are plenty of them nearby. Most of them are pretty well-design. They have a lot of stuff inside which suits our, the elderly, needs. We can have plenty of workout spaces. I can not complain much about that.

Interviewer: It is known that Kwun Tong has a very high density. How would you comment on that?

Mr Chow: I won't say it's very crowded. However, in the past, the neighbourhood relationship when living in older style 7-floor housing is much better than current days in the high-rises. I can no longer develop a good relationship with the neighbours. Nowadays, people do not even know the names of their neighbours! Everyone in my housing estate, usually we have been living together in this building for more than 10 more years, but we don't usually greet each other. This is the worst point of the current living environment. The current housing form is so much higher than the past, mine is over 30 floors, and I think that's one of the reasons why.

Interviewer: Then, would you mind to evaluate the living environment here? Do you think it is a liveable one?

Mr Chow: I think it is pretty good. It's better than the worst but not as good as the best. It's fair.

Interviewer: Do you have any comments on the current on-going urban renewal process in Kwun Tong?

Mr Chow: Well, it's happening in the city centre, so it's not affecting me a lot. Well, but I am expecting to have more shopping malls, which could allow us to have more place to rest and hang out. More restaurants for us to Yum-cha is surely good, right?

Interviewer: Which aspect do you think would be the most important for the government to work on in order to make the district a more liveable.. and better area to live?

Mr Chow: I do not have much comment on that.

Interviewer: No problem. Here is the end of the interview, thank you so much for your help!

(V) TRANSCRIPT – MS LAM Interviewer: Since when and why do you start living in Kwun Tong?

Ms Lam: Since I married to my husband, I have moved into this district. Owing to the fact that my husband parents are also living in this district, we have decided to move in as well.

Interviewer: What's your opinion on the living environment in Kwun Tong?

Ms Lam: It's fine... It's very convenient. Shopping... Transportation are all very easy.

Interviewer: How about housing and rent?

Ms Lam: It's okay...

Interviewer: How about public spaces?

Ms Lam: I live in Tsui Ping Estate and it's pretty ok. I have plenty of spaces to socialize.

Interviewer: Do you feel the density here?

Ms Lam: Well it is all VERY dense in Hong Kong in general. I hope that we could have more in-house spaces. Such as in Shun Li Estate, it is less dense. It is very dense over here. The buildings are all tightly packed. At first, I had a hard time getting use to this environment, it is very stressful. Now... I am getting use to it.

Interviewer: Where did you live previously?

Ms Lam: Shenzhen. It is dense as well but it is much more comfortable. We have more space to hang our clothes. In Kwun Tong, you have no where to hang your clothes. In particular, to wash our blankets is very troublesome, we have no space in door but we are not allowed to hang it outdoor. And it's even worst that indoor we do not have enough sunlight. It is very inconvenient indeed. I would like to have more sunlight... the living environment would be much better.

Interviewer: How about the urban renewal, is it affecting your life?

Ms Lam: I wish they can complete the renewal very soon. I feel like the plan would be able to make the district more vibrant. In the past, Kwun Tong was once very vibrant, in particular in the area of Yue Man Square. If they could speed up the renewal, then I guess the district development would be even better and attract more people to come.

Interviewer: They are going to build plenty of high-rise business and residential building over that area, don't you feel worried about that?

Ms Lam: Well... I guess they are going to seperate them right? Business buildings should be built in the industrial area...It should be fine.

Interviewer: All in all, do you think this neighbour is a good and liveable one?

Ms Lam: I feel like it is pretty good. Sometimes, I would like to work. And there're both industrial zone and residential zone here inside Kwun Tong so it is pretty convenient for me to find a job. It is pretty close.

Interviewer: From your experience in Kwun Tong, which aspect should the government work on so as to make it liveable?

Ms Lam: The recreational facilities. Somewhere for us to hangout with friends, to have fun. There's very limited provision of such places here in Kwun Tong. The design of the public spaces... There are not much facilities for the children as well. We need some more facilities for the kids.

Interviewer: What would be your ideal living environment?

Ms Lam: For living environment, Hong Kong is definitely not good from my point of view. I feel like... Um... Shenzhen would be a good place to live. Going out is very convenient, the housing is in better quality and have more spaces. It won't be like this in Hong Kong where we have such a small flat that it is so crowded and inconvenient. I do not have to count and plan every action at home. In particular, the in-door housing are would be more important. I could not store a lot of stuff at home, as my home is too small. If I buy a little bit more things, I am going to block the only walking path we have. We have to try hard to assort and coordinate our needs in respect to the spaces we have.

Interviewer: How about... In case that you do not have to worry about money or so, would you move to elsewhere?

Ms Lam: I have already get used to this neighbourhood. So I do not have the need to move...But If I have more money I would move to district with better environment, such as Tseung Kwan O? It seems to be more spacious over there and the air quality seems better as well. Unlike that here, where the air quality is pretty bad. It is too crowded and packed, so in Kwun Tong we do not have good ventilation as well. Luckily, I am living at higher floor so I could enjoy a bit of wind sometimes. As for those who are living in lower floors, it is pretty bad, they have no wind entering their house at all. It is very crowded and uncomfortable. I have used to it... well, if it's a bit too stressed sometimes, I would just go to the harbour front, and take a ferry to North Point. Well, I have get used to it.

Interviewer: How about migration?

Ms Lam: I am afraid that it would be hard for the kids to adapt to new environment. So ... I guess not.

Interviewer: Thank you so much for your time!

(VI) TRANSCRIPT – MR CHAN Interviewer: Thank you so much for accepting my interview request.

Mr Chan: No problem.

Interviewer: How did you end up living in Kwun Tong?

Mr Chan: Since I was born? I am living in private housing nearby.

Interviewer: Do you know why did your family choose to live in Kwun Tong.

Mr Chan: Mainly because it's pretty convenient here. Transportation is very convenient here.

Interviewer: What's your comment on the living environment here in Kwun Tong?

Mr Chan: Transportation is very convenient here. There are also plenty of shopping mall here in Kwun Tong, such as APM. It's large scale and has plenty of shops.

Interviewer: How about the public space? Mr Chan: Sometimes, I may go with friends.

Interviewer: How about housing condition?

Mr Chan: It is pretty ok from my perspective. I have sufficient spaces.

Interviewer: Do you think you would move to other districts?

Mr Chan: No I think I would stay in this district.

Interviewer: Kwun Tong is one of the densest districts, do you have any comment on this density?

Mr Chan: It's fair. There are plenty of good people here. People are pretty friendly here. I like the neighbourhood here.

Interviewer: How about the on-going urban renewal in Kwun Tong? Is it affecting your daily life?

Mr Chan: Well... The old buildings are being rebuilt now. They are turning into shopping malls or so. Probably it will be more convenient in the future. I am pretty positive about that.

Interviewer: Do you find it liveable? What do you think is the most important to make a place liveable?

Mr Chan: Liveable... the environment I think. I mean would there be a lot of pollution... Kwun Tong is fairly ok...It's kind of liveable.

Interviewer: Then, which aspect do you think the government should work on in order to make Hong Kong more liveable?

Mr Chan: I think they should build more infrastructure and provide more facilities. I think there should be more parks... or open spaces, for people to hang-out and relax. There are sufficient spaces now, but more would be better.

Interviewer: What's your ideal living environment?

Mr Chan: Bigger. Bigger flat, more parks and greenings and more importantly to have more shopping malls for me to go visit.

Interviewer: Which place would better suit your ideal?

Mr Chan: Well... I think Hong Kong is pretty good. I think I won't move to anywhere else.

Interviewer: Sure. Thank you so much for your time. Here's the end of today's interview.

(VII) TRANSCRIPT – MR CHEUNG Interviewer: Thank you so much for accepting my interview request.

Mr Cheung: No problem. Interviewer: How did you end up living in Kwun Tong?

Mr Cheung: I moved here. Following my dad.

Interviewer: Where have you stayed in the past?

Mr Cheung: I was living in Tsuen Wan previously. I like Tsuen Wan better because it is less crowded than Kwun Tong. Fewer people.

Interviewer: Do you have any comments on the living environment of Kwun Tong?

Mr Cheung: Too old, in general. Everything here looks worn out.

Interviewer: How about the housing size? Do you have sufficient living space?

Mr Cheung: It's ok and It's pretty convenient.

Interviewer: Do you think this district is a liveable one?

Mr Cheung: No... not really. The air pollution problem is pretty bad and it is way to crowded here in Kwun Tong. I feel like there are way too many people living in this district. It is very dense as well. I would prefer Tsuen Wan as it is less dense and it is more spacious. I feel like that.

Interviewer: Would you move to elsewhere?

Mr Cheung: Yes. Definitely, I would move to somewhere quieter.

Interviewer: Would you consider migration?

Mr Cheung: Yes. I... would prefer to move to somewhere like Canada. The living environment is much better. Although the transportation is not so convenient over there, I would prefer somewhere quieter and with better nature.

Interviewer: That's all for today's interview. Thank you so much for your time.

(VIII) TRANSCRIPT – MR CHU Mr Chu, 16

Interviewer: Thank you so much for accepting my interview request.

Mr Chu: No problem.

Interviewer: Would you mind telling me how did you end up living in Kwun Tong?

Mr Chu: Since I was born, I am living in this district.

Interviewer: How would you describe the living environment in this district?

Mr Chu: Well...It's pretty good as it's pretty close to the school. It's pretty convenient.

Interviewer: How about the housing condition? Are you satisfy with your current housing?

Mr Chu: It's around 400-500 ft for 5 people in our family. It's pretty sufficient I think.

Interviewer: How about the facilities here in Kwun Tong, do you find it sufficient and of good quality?

Mr Chu: It's pretty sufficient.

Interviewer: Do you find it dense in Kwun Tong?

Mr Chu: No really... Well, if there are too little people... I do not like places which are too quiet. I would prefer to live in somewhere which is more vibrant and active. Kwun Tong is just right. I think. It's very important to be convenient.

Interviewer: Do you find Kwun Tong liveable? In what way it should be improved?

Mr Chu: I hope... well... when I go out, there are smoke and waste gases filling in the air. I wish that the air quality could be better. It is too bad here that I think it would affect my health condition.

Interviewer: Are there noise pollution problem as well?

Mr Chu: Yes. It's pretty often to have noise pollution problem at night.

Interviewer: Do you think the current living environment an ideal one?

Mr Chu: Yes I think it's pretty ideal. I would stay in this district.

Interviewer: Okay. Thank you so much. Here's the end of today's interview.

(IX) TRANSCRIPT – MR KAM

Interviewer: Good morning. Thank you for accepting my interview request. So first, do you like the living environment here in Kwun Tong?

Mr Kam: The worst thing here is the wet market. Go there and you can see what exactly 'Kwun Tong' is. It is very dirty. DIRTY. It's dirty and messy. AW.

Interviewer: How long have you been living in this district?

Mr Kam: A long time. The old district is all like that. The wet market is the worst. Luckily it is going to be renewed. It's very dirty and messy. Cars parked illegally...too crowded too many people. This is Kwun Tong. It is very representative.

Interviewer: How about the housing environment?

Mr Kam: You need not to talk about the housing environment. This kind of housing, of course, it is bad. Tong lau, a lot of housing are pretty old in this district. Of course, those newly built high-rises are much better. But for people like me, who are living in older buildings, of course, we are not satisfied. Hong Kong people are very selfish you know. The newer public housing in other district is so much better! Look at their wet market, its design is so much better!

Interviewer: So what do you think about the urban renewal which is going to take place at Kwun Tong centre?

Mr Kam: Urban renewal, of course, it would be good. For the old districts, this is necessary, well, for sure they are going to bring some differences. But I think that they are going to bring more good things to the district. I do not care about that there would be more newcomers. They would soon become part of the community, right? More people moving in would even make the district more vibrant. The current public housing although is very huge in scale, people only care about themselves. They seldom greet the others or care about their neighbours. We do not even know each other.

Interviewer: How about the transportation in this district?

Mr Kam: The transportation is fairly fine. We have buses, minibuses... MTR... It is pretty good. The environment is also fine. The parks are pretty good.

Interviewer: How about the quality of these public spaces?

Mr Kam: Well... I hope that after urban renewal they would improve the environment here.

Interviewer: So Kwun Tong is one of the densest community in Hong Kong, do you like the density here?

Mr Kam: Well, it's pretty good. A lot of people is making the district more vibrant. I can have more people to chitchat with. I could make more friends as well.

Interviewer: Are they sufficient spaces for you to hang-out with your friends?

Mr Kam: Temporarily, it's insufficient. But I am expecting more in the near future. More parks would be great.

Interviewer: Would you move to other districts?

Mr Kam: No, I won't. I am attached to the place. I have memories. Moving to a new place, I have to get used to it again. I do not want to experience all these again.

Interviewer: That's all for today's interview. Thank you so much.

(X) TRANSCRIPT – MRS FONG Interviewer: First, would you mind telling me why did you move into Kwun Tong?

Mrs Fong: It's because of my husband. He had been living in Kwun Tong for a long while, so after marriage, I have moved to this district as well.

Interviewer: How long have you been staying in this district?

Mrs Fong: It has been around 4-5 years.

Interviewer: How would you describe the living environment here in this district?

Mrs Fong: It is an old district with an ageing population problem. There are a lot of elderlies living in this district. And the infrastructures are in general worn out.

Interviewer: Are you satisfied with your current housing condition?

Mrs Fong: It's okay. Plenty of spaces. I am currently living in a flat which is around 500 square ft for three people.

Interviewer: How about the public transportation in this district?

Mrs Fong: It is fairly good. I have plenty of choices for transportation.

Interviewer: How about public spaces?

Mrs Fong: There are plenty... well I would say it's sufficient but the facilities are ... often worn out and no longer usable. I wish they could have more facilities for children though. For example, for swings, there are only two parks are with swings inside. They usually have facilities for the elderly but not for the children. If they could provide more swings or climbing facilities for children, that would be much better. Currently, the government is focusing on new area. They have plenty of better facilities, however, for the older areas, it would be much more difficult for us to ask for better facilities. Although it is undergoing urban renewal in Yue Man Square, however, it is not so convenient for us to go there. However, I believe that upon the completion of the urban renewal in central Kwun Tong, the government would believe that we could travel to the centre for such 'newer facilities' and ignore our needs in our closer neighbourhood. They, the government, is providing different policy, such as the 2 dollar transportation or so, asking us not to stay in your neighbourhood. Well...I , I am not saying that it's a bad policy, but I think they are only looking at one side of the matter.

Interviewer: Kwun Tong is indeed the district with the highest population density. What do you think about that?

Mrs Fong: To be honest, not so much as I usually choose not to stay in this neighbourhood. I would usually go visit Tseung Kwan O. So it is hard to say if I have feel the density here. Because me, my husband or our children would rather go outside to the countryside to enjoy some greenery and nature than staying in the neighbourhood. We rarely, really rarely would stay in the neighbourhood. Well, probably only around this timing (that was about 3pm), while I have to wait for my kids to get off from school and pick them up. I would be staying in the neighbourhood, to walk around and do some sight- seeing. During this period of time, I would visit aPM or the wet market...

Interviewer: What if the community environment could be improved, would you choose to stay longer in the neighbourhood? Or it is the same, you would prefer to stay in the countryside?

Mrs Fong: As I do not usually use the community facilities... for example, for the park near my flat, there would be plenty of south-east Asian migrants and their children... It could be hard for us to communicate, and they might smoke inside these parks. When my kid is still 3 years old, I would rather not to go to these parks. It is a public space, so they also have the right to use it. Unless they are doing something really wrong, no one would actually ask them not to do so. There are plenty of new migrants in this district... They are not commonly well-educated. When everyone is pretty self-centric, I would rather go hang-out in somewhere which are known to be 'higher-class', such as Tseung Kwan O, which is known for being a middle-class district where usually the working class couple will be out working in the morning and the foreign domestic helper would be taking care of their child. In that district, when the living cost and level would be relatively higher, the people are in general, more polite and better educated.

Interviewer: The government is now planning to make the city more liveable. From your perspective, what would make a liveable city or environment?

Mrs Fong: Liveable... Ummm... There's a lot. In particular, when you have kids, of course, you would put education environment as the top priority. The living environment is also pretty important but education would be the most important one. For families with children, I believe that it is very important. Better education facilities.

Interviewer: Then, from your own opinion, do you think Kwun Tong is providing a liveable environment?

Mrs Fong: Not so good. It is overly... too worn out, too old. I was previously living in Tsing Yi, over there, everything is much newer and better. When I first arrived this district, I was like... "Wow...It's really old over here.".

Interviewer: Do you have any plan moving to other districts? For example, you have mentioned Tseung Kwan O.

Mrs Fong: Of course, we are having this vision. However, it is very hard to achieve so it's hard to say. If only I can move, that would be really good. I don't really like the environment here.

Interviewer: So which district would be best reflecting your ideal living environment?

Mrs Fong: Tsing Yi district I would say. Well... when you have lived in a district for more than 10 years, of course, I have attachment over there. The things could be growingly old, but it's with memories and feelings with that. So it's better for me.

Interviewer: If you compare the two district, Tsing Yi and Kwun Tong, by only the physical living environment, which one would be a more liveable one?

Mrs Fong: Tsing Yi for sure! It is much less dense. For instance, when you look out in Kwun Tong, it's always buildings and buildings. In Tsing Yi, at least, I can see some part of a mountain. It will not be like a wall... It is a wall here in Kwun Tong. People move in, well if you go asking those in On Tat Estate, they will just tell you the reason why they move in is simply that they are being allocated to the new public estate...'Why not?' they would say. It's like that. To be honest, for those who are living in HOS (Home Ownership Scheme), the wall buildings here in Kwun Tong is making us pretty pathetic. Even if I have the ability to move, it is pretty hard for me not to buy a flat which is not facing other high-rises. Then, why not just save that money and spend it in other ways. In Hong Kong, it's like..."If only you can have a flat to live, it's already too good to be true." I do sometimes, think like that. Why not just save the money to buy a car, to go travel, or to eat better?

Interviewer: If you do not need to consider other factors, such as money... would you choose to migrate to other countries?

Mrs Fong: I would. Definitely. The U.S. is pretty good. Free and have a nice living environment. Even for housing, the housing cost would be much cheaper than it here. For the same amount of money, we could buy a much larger flat. It's all about 'to live or to survive'. In Hong Kong, it's barely surviving instead of living. What would you choose if you could? haha...

Interviewer: Yea... I got that. That's all of today's interview, thank you so much for your time.

(XI) TRANSCRIPT – MRS KWOK Interviewer: First, would you mind telling me why did you move into Kwun Tong?

Mrs Kwok: I was living in the old style 7-floors public housing in the past after the government demolished the old buildings, we have moved into the new public housing in Kwun Tong.

Interviewer: How would you describe the living environment in this district?

Mrs Kwok: It's pretty ok as recently there is more supermarkets and shopping place being built. It was not good in the past. It was pretty inconvenient. But recently it's getting better.

Interviewer: How about the housing quality in this district?

Mrs Kwok: I am living in a larger public housing unit so it is pretty ok. It is around 500 sq meters for us, 6 people. It was a bit crowded in the past, but now my daughters have got married and therefore it is fine right now. If we all live together, of course, it is insufficient. But now after two of them moved out, it is pretty sufficient now.

Interviewer: How about transportation here?

Mrs Kwok: As for transportation, I won't say it's very inconvenient. If for me to walk out to the centre, it only takes me around 15 minutes. So it's not bad.

Interviewer: How about parks and public spaces? Do you find it sufficient and of good quality?

Mrs Kwok: No so sufficient. I think the current public spaces are lacking in terms of facilities. There are not so much of facilities for the elderly or for the children. For example, in our neighbourhood, we do not have the sports equipment which I could find in other districts. I think with those equipment the spaces would suit our need better. After all, when I get older, I would like to have something to help me exercise. With more facilities like that, it could help us to exercise easily. Currently, this kind of facilities is quite insufficient.

Interviewer: Kwun Tong is famous for being dense and highly populated. Do you have any comment on that?

Mrs Kwok: I feel like there is increasing population here. More and more people... I feel like there's a lot of new immigrants from Mainland China and south-east Asia. There was less in the past. From my own perspective, I feel like there are more people here. Sometimes, I could observe that the young new immigrants gather and damaging some public facilities. I feel like the safety is going worst in the district recently.

Interviewer: Does Kwun Tong urban renewal affect your daily life?

Mrs Kwok: No so much of impact. I only find that the new migrants moving in a problem.

Interviewer: Then, with the increase of population in the district, do you find it affecting your transportation experience?

Mrs Kwok: Well... I do not go out that often so I do not really know. However, I usually walk to the MTR station and use the MTR. It's not that far.

Interviewer: Do you know about the concept of 'liveable'?

Mrs Kwok: Does it means good for people to live?

Interviewer: Yes, do you think the current living environment in Kwun Tong is a liveable one?

Mrs Kwok: It's pretty ok. Well, we are not people with high standards you know... I think it's ok now, if they could build more facilities for local residents it could be even better.

Interviewer: So do you have plans to move?

Mrs Kwok: No. Of course not, we have already bought our flat. We have no plans to move. I found it pretty good to stay here.

Interviewer: Thank you so much for your time.