Hong Kong Housingadministrative region, China Chinese (Pinyin) Xianggang or (Wade-Giles) Hsiang-Kang

Historically, housing has been a major problem in Hong Kong, where space is limited and the number of occupants ever-growing. Changes in the residential environment between the establishment of the colony in 1842 and the Japanese occupation in 1941 were moderate, compared to those that took place in the postwar years. There was no planning in the earlier days of development, except that generally the British lived on the Peak (the area around Victoria Peak), other nationalities in the Mid-Levels (below the Peak), and the wealthy on somewhat higher ground, where the grand garden houses and large mansions remain as landmarks. Most of the Chinese lived on the lowlands surrounding the harbour, where the streets were narrow and the houses made of wood, bricks, and mortar. They lacked not only good natural lighting and ventilation but also piped water and flush toilets. Frequently urban development was the result of plagues, fires, and typhoons rather than comprehensive city planning; and the presence of large numbers of squatters and street sleepers as a result of a shortage of housing has been a persistent feature.

The limited housing supply was further reduced by the ravages of World War II. In the early postwar years, more than half of all families shared accommodations with others, living in cubicles, bed spaces, and attics and on roofs and verandas and in similar quarters. The colonial government’s reluctant involvement in housing provision began with the building of resettlement blocks for fire victims in 1953, but it took real impetus in the early 1960s when the great demand for urban land resulted in the relocation of large numbers of squatters and urban poor. Eventually public housing came to accommodate more than half of the population, most of them living far from the urban core, and with growing numbers settling into the new towns. Land prices and rents have reached extremely high levels.