Full of green, another new town in the New Territories, is in sharp contrast to Shenzhen's continuous large-scale construction land.
Hong Kong people never say that their place is a "tiny place". In fact, the land area of Hong Kong is only 1 108 square kilometers, equivalent to 6.8% of Beijing 16400 square kilometers, and roughly equivalent to about half of Shunyi District or Daxing District, Huairou District or Miyun County. By the end of 20 12, the permanent population of Hong Kong was 7170,000, equivalent to more than one third of Beijing's 20.69 million. That is to say, according to the total urban area, the per capita land in Beijing and Hong Kong is 792 square meters and 155 square meters respectively, the former is 5. 1 times that of the latter.
In Hong Kong 1 108 square kilometers, woodland, grassland, wetland, water body and agricultural land account for 836 square kilometers, that is, more than 75%. After deducting some unusable land, the remaining area available for construction is only about 263 square kilometers (including 68 square kilometers of reclamation area), equivalent to 36.7 square meters per capita. According to the satellite remote sensing research of Tsinghua and Chinese Academy of Sciences on urban expansion, as of 20 10, the built-up area of Beijing has reached 2,400 square kilometers, equivalent to about 1 16 square meters per person. According to the plan, by 2020, the total construction land in Beijing will be 38 17 square kilometers, which is equivalent to 2 12 square meters per person. This is Hong Kong.
From the perspective of regional distribution, the per capita area of Chaoyang and Haidian in Beijing is about 130 square meters. Dongcheng District and Xicheng District have the highest density, equivalent to 42.7 square meters per capita, while Kowloon District in Hong Kong has only 22.3 square meters per capita. Mong Kok, the most densely populated area, can only get 7.7 square meters of land per capita, which is equivalent to 18% in Dongcheng and Xicheng District of Beijing and 6% in Chaoyang and Haidian District.
In Beijing, the plot ratio of residential buildings is generally between 2.0 and 3.0, mostly in the form of closed communities. In everyone's mind, it is impossible to live if the plot ratio exceeds 3.0, because there will be towers instead of pure board buildings; According to the statutory plan of Hong Kong, the plot ratio of residential buildings on Hong Kong Island is 8- 10, that of Kowloon is 7.5, and that of new development area is 6.5. The plot ratio of redevelopment projects may be higher. It can be seen that the floor area ratio of Hong Kong is three to four times that of Beijing. In addition, most houses in Hong Kong exist in the form of blocks, and there are basically no residential gardens. The width of the street is much smaller than that of Beijing. As soon as residents leave the building, it is a municipal road, thus making more roads to accommodate the building.
At present, one-third of households in Hong Kong live in government public housing, with the largest being 69 square meters (calculated in terms of usable area, the same below) and the smallest being 8.2 square meters. Take the Qiqing Village built by China Construction International on the original site of Kai Tak Airport as an example. Minimum apartment 14. 1 m2, which can accommodate 1-2 people. The monthly rent is 909 Hong Kong dollars, and the largest is 37 square meters. It is a two-bedroom apartment that can accommodate 4-5 people. The monthly rent is HK$ 2,387. Even such a house has to wait for at least three years. Apart from the government's public housing, most of the houses developed by private developers are small. According to statistics, only about 65,438+00% of the residential units in Hong Kong are larger than 65,438+000 square meters, which is the so-called "thousands of feet Mansion". However, these luxury houses are by no means affordable for ordinary people. Take Hong Kong Island as an example. The unit price of apartments between 20 1 100 and 160 square meters is HK$ 0.68 million per square meter, that is, the average price of 100 square meter apartments is about RMB168,000. The vast majority of people are not well-off in housing conditions, and it is very common for a family of three or four to live in forty or fifty square meters.
Houses in Hong Kong have always been an ideal material to challenge patients with cryptology.
For such a crowded space, we mainlanders will find it incomprehensible, and most of them will show deep sympathy and pity for Hong Kong people. Some mainland government officials even come to learn from the scriptures, but after reading them, they often feel disapproval and even sneer. People will wonder: Is this day regular in this high-density city? Will they be wronged to death?
Let's look at the suicide rate first. 20 1 1 year, the suicide rate in Hong Kong is about per 1000001.8, and the international average is per10000010/. In terms of life expectancy, the average life expectancy of 20 1 1 Hongkong is 82.8 years, ranking second among all countries and regions in the world and first in China (China is 73.5 years old, ranking 83rd in the world). Of course, there are many reasons for these facts, but at least it shows that the narrow space has not made these indicators in Hong Kong significantly worse than those in other regions.
I flew from Hong Kong to Beijing before the Spring Festival this year. It's been two and a half months since I went home last time. The first feeling when I left the airport was that Beijing was particularly empty. When I entered the community, I always felt that there could be another building between my building and the building in front. When I entered the house, the study that I used to think was too small was not too small. Those tall and fat foreigners can survive better in Hong Kong, which shows that people have strong adaptability, including adaptability to the size of space.
When I return to Beijing, I will return to the grand city scale, whether indoors, in the community or on the road, I will automatically return to my original life, immediately stop walking, get on the bus and start running on various loops. Of course, that was only during the New Year in China. Under normal circumstances, the space is wide, but the road is impassable. Under the high-density development mode, urban space is depressing (especially when the head is raised, although there are not many such opportunities), but you will also find that although the roads are not wide, the traffic is not congested. In addition to self-driving that ordinary people can't afford, you have more modes of travel: walking, subway and bus, which are fast, comfortable and dignified.
Let's imagine that if the population density of Beijing is increased to four times by increasing the floor area ratio, reducing the average area and compressing the road land, the occupied land area will be reduced to 1/4. When the area of a circle is reduced to a quarter, the distance from the circle to the center of the circle will be reduced to half of the original one, which will bring many changes: First, the destination that must drive or take a bus (such as businesses, hospitals, cinemas, etc.). Secondly, the length of subway or bus lines is shortened by half, which reduces people's ride time. The same number of vehicles and drivers can double the original encrypted trips, thus reducing the waiting time and the number of passengers per capita and improving the ride comfort; Third, when more people choose to walk or take public transport instead of driving, more roads need to be occupied by public transport, which is more punctual and comfortable, and narrow roads also make walking easier; Fourthly, with the high-density passenger flow, the subway and public transport have become profitable businesses, and there will be competition when making money, thus improving services. In particular, the subway can also interact with the retail and service industries to gain benefits and improve the waiting environment. At the same time, the government no longer invests huge subsidies in public transportation, which indirectly saves taxpayers' expenses; Fifth, due to high-density development, the proportion of parking spaces is seriously insufficient, parking fees (I have seen 80 Hong Kong dollars an hour), parking spaces prices (much more than 654.38 million) are high, and high oil prices (currently about 65.438+06-65.438+07 Hong Kong dollars per liter) inhibit the growth of automobiles.
From the data point of view, in 20 1 1 year, the average daily passenger flow in Beijing is19.64 million, with an average of 0.97 times per person per day, while that in Hong Kong is about120,000 times, with an average of10.7 times per person per day, which is/kloc-in Beijing. Where did the difference go? Let's look at motor vehicles. There are 4.986 million vehicles in Beijing, equivalent to one for every four people, while there are only 624,000 vehicles in Hong Kong, equivalent to one for every 1 1 person. Because of Beijing's large urban framework, motor vehicles can travel on roads of 2 1300 km, while Hong Kong has only 2,086 km, equivalent to 234 vehicles and 299 vehicles per km. It seems that the former has fewer vehicles per kilometer on average, but when eight times the number of vehicles are concentrated in a single central city and the ring road, the difference in congestion degree is not difficult to imagine. In addition, there are 66,000 taxis in Beijing and only 1.8 million in Hong Kong, with an average of 3 13 passengers and 398 passengers respectively. However, the success rate of the latter calling a taxi is much higher than that of the former, because taxis still have the function of commuting in Beijing, especially for drivers with restricted vehicles.
According to statistics, about 90% of Hong Kong people commute to work by bus, which is the highest proportion in the world. Behind it is the scale economy of public transportation brought by the high-density development mode of the city, which shortens the distance between the living place and the activity place. People can easily use public transportation to interact with transportation service providers, thus improving the economic benefits of the system and reducing social investment.
Since the opening of Hong Kong, immigrants from the mainland of China have arrived one after another, and the population has shown a sustained growth trend. Especially after 1945 civil war, the population of Hong Kong increased to 2 million in 1950. Since then, a large number of people have fled Hong Kong in various domestic political movements, which has always caused the contradiction between the population expansion and the scarcity of land resources in Hong Kong. In this case, Hong Kong has adopted the strategy of high-density development to improve the efficiency of land use and solve the housing and employment problems of a large number of people. In fact, if we don't adopt this strategy, the boundaries of cities will expand indefinitely, more forests will become "concrete forests", and the natural ecological environment in many areas will be destroyed. Today, one of the achievements of implementing the high-density strategy is that the city has left 500 square kilometers of "protected areas", including 24 country parks and 22 special areas.
According to the distribution map of country parks in Hong Kong, country parks account for 40% of Hong Kong's land area and are closely related to various residential and commercial areas. ?
These country parks are also found in Beijing, but the difference is that it takes an hour to drive to Beijing, and people can get there quickly from home, and they are real country parks rather than artificial parks. Take Wan Chai District as an example. From anywhere, people can hike up the mountain for several minutes to ten minutes, walk violently on the 50-kilometer hiking trail on Hong Kong Island, enjoy the peaks, woodlands, ponds (i.e. reservoirs), islands, circuitous coastlines and rich vegetation, and walk in nature for a whole day, which is both safe and without motor vehicles. Hong Kong Island Trail is only the shortest of the four hiking trails, and the longest is 100 km. Besides, there are countless trails in Le Jia, picnics and nature education for people to choose from.
/kloc-In the 1970s, Hong Kong began to implement the new town development plan. Nine new towns, including Tsuen Wan, Sha Tin and Tuen Mun, were formed in the New Territories, and the manufacturing industry was transferred to the new towns, providing employment opportunities for the local population. By 20 10, the population of new towns will be about 3.3 million, accounting for 47% of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has changed from a traditional central city with Hong Kong Island and Kowloon City as a single center to a multi-center urban pattern. These new cities are all built near country parks, and they can reach the countryside in ten minutes from the city. At the same time, necessary commercial and other public facilities will be set up in new towns to facilitate residents to use these facilities nearby and reduce the external traffic flow.
In high-density cities, although people have no indoor gardens or big gardens that close communities, they have left large areas of forests and protected areas for people to release the pressure brought by high density. So from this perspective: "small" is actually "big". When the city occupies less land, the reserved land will naturally become larger, people's houses will become smaller, but the activity space will become larger, and people can go further with their own legs; Conversely, "big" may also be "small". When the city is big, it naturally becomes far away and the road is wide, but the walking range is small, either stuck in the car, stuck in the road, or living in a big house or a community garden.
Making full use of public facilities is another advantage of high-density cities. Because high density is often accompanied by the existence of blocks, people who go downstairs are often the bottom merchants. On the one hand, it is convenient for people around to enjoy (although queues are often needed during peak hours), on the other hand, popularity also improves the utilization rate (such as repeated turnover of restaurants). Here, there are few private rooms in restaurants, even if there are, the scale is far smaller than those luxurious private rooms with a sense of ceremony in China, so that most government officials from the mainland will feel neglected. In some bars in hutongs, there are few seats and many people, and guests stand by and drink and chat in the street, but it has also become a unique landscape in the eyes of pedestrians. Most of the community clubs in the mainland that are better than nothing are vacant, and the swimming pools are out of service. But the clubhouses here are often well run, because the houses are small, and many internalized functions such as reception and gathering are externalized. Residents enjoy good service in the clubhouse, developers can make money, resources can be maximized here, and the commercial value of space can be maximized.
In Beijing, I have hardly been to the library since I left the university. First, I feel far away. It takes too long to go to the most familiar Beitu, but I don't know where to go to the nearest regional or community library. Second, I feel that the procedures are complicated, and the feeling of going to the library to follow up the yamen is similar. At present, there are 25 public libraries in Beijing, equivalent to 820,000 people, while there are 67 public libraries in tiny Hong Kong, equivalent to 65,438+10,000 people, and they are very close to residents. Even on a small Lamma Island, there are two libraries, and the nearest library can be reached within walking distance in most areas. Each area has sports facilities such as stadiums, and most of them can be reached within walking distance. Therefore, the utilization rate of sports facilities such as Southorn Stadium is very high, unlike those centralized large-scale sports facilities in Beijing, which are deserted and keep people away.
The distribution map of public libraries on Hong Kong Island is about 65,438+04km from the easternmost point to the westernmost point of Hong Kong Island. There are 14 libraries in the most densely populated northern area, with an average of one library per kilometer. ?
Among them: C stands for Central Library; M stands for main library; S stands for small library; Cars represent mobile libraries.
Every time God closes a door, he opens a window for people. Therefore, in a high-density and compact city, God can't give everyone enough houses, but he has opened a bigger sky for everyone, allowing people to go further and see more. On the contrary, God allows people to enjoy spacious personal space, so they have to endure traffic jams, polluted air and poor public services. What does it have to do with God? It's just our own choice. In addition to poking fun at themselves as "tiny places", Hong Kong people often add "Hong Kong is a magical place". When a city chooses its own development model, people will find their own way of life in it, but no choice is perfect, only advantages and disadvantages. For megacities, high density and compactness may be an important option of urbanization development model, but we (including the government and the public) do not understand it.