Subdivided Units

kurzvorzwoelf

On our recent trip to Hong Kong, I learned about the precarious housing situation that is harsh reality for a few hundred thousand people there. The so-called subdivided units are a special form of housing in Hong Kong nobody likes to speak about. Once regular apartments, they were divided into multiple units, mostly in an illegal manner. Some provide as little as ~4 square meters (40 square feet) of space for people to live.

In the following pictures, each A/C unit seen from the outside represents one apartment (and some have none), where sometimes multiple people live:

1

2

3

4

5

Since these flats obviously lack sanitary spaces, their inhabitants are forced to use public sanitary spaces such as this public sport center:

6

The following buildings do not host subdivided units, but they don't look much more inviting either:

7

8

Juano

I feel claustrophobic already

kurzvorzwoelf

@Juano If you feel claustrophobic already, then this will give you the rest: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/07/hong-kong-living-trapped-lam-photos/ - I regret I didn't bring a copy of Benny Lam's book home with me, it has quite some seriously good photographs in it (I had the opportunity to browse through one's private copy)

Juano

Wow.... depressing

Stumblebum

Well, I thought all of Hong Kong was rich and wonderful, so this is definitely a shock. I have been to Taiwan, I don't think they have it so bad, but general idea is same. You have to be uber rich to have an actual home, what we take for granted in US. Everyone lives in small apartments and have a scooter most of the time. Best way to appreciate US is to travel. As much as I have hunger to see the world and for adventure and discovery and even though a very tiny bit of that has been satisfied, nothing is more satisfying to me when I get back home and get on 5 lane highway out of SF airport. We have it easy here.

Lab_Tested

Very nice photos, and very sobering. #8 looks like it came straight out of a scifi movie.

Cornflake

Well done. It looks ghastly to me.

kurzvorzwoelf

Thank you @Stumblebum @Lab_Tested @Cornflake

Taz, well HK basically seemed to be a very rich city most of the time. Real estate prices are high, lots of commerce and also some super-rich people around. But this kind of capitalism always has two sides, right? In the big US cities, I guess there are districts where people like you and me aren't supposed to go either? Or is that rather a thing of the past?

Stumblebum

Yeah we have ghettos, but are there ghetto like that in Singapore? Since these are city states, they have much less real estate to worry about to take care of, and economy has been great for a while so I assumed they won’t have large run down areas