Batgung

Allow me to offer up a hot proposition to anyone who may be thinking about coming to live in Hong Kong.

(No, no, Mrs Tall – I assure you – not that kind of proposition!)

Ahem. Yes, times here are bad economically, and life in Hong Kong has its challenges. Yes, Hong Kong is a crowded and sometimes-crazy city. But here’s my offer: moving to Hong Kong gives you the chance to live what is likely the most ecologically-correct lifestyle you will find anywhere in the industrialized world.

That’s right! If you’re really concerned about the environment; if you really believe the apocalyptic pronouncements on climate change from the IPCC and Al Gore; if you really think that you are called to ‘make a difference’ in the battle against habitat destruction and the spreading human stains on Gaia’s face – here’s your chance. Come to Hong Kong!

This might strike you as counterintuitive. Okay, okay – it might strike you as certifiably insane.

But it’s not, for two extremely good reasons.

First, there’s density. If you move to Hong Kong, and find a nice little flat in a typical 40- or 50-storey block, you will be committing yourself to living at a level of density that’s proven to be environmentally more sound than living in suburbs or other low-density arrangements. As this article from the invaluable City Journal shows, high-density urban living is the most eco-friendly way of passing your stay on this mortal coil. Your ‘footprint’ is physically much smaller; your living space is likely to be compact and hence more efficient to heat and cool; and your centralized location means you burn less fuel getting around – especially if you live somewhere dense enough to support public transport (more on this in a bit).

So any good eco-warrior should embrace the urban:

. . . if you want to be good to the environment, stay away from it. Move to high-rise apartments surrounded by plenty of concrete. Americans who settle in leafy, low-density suburbs will leave a significantly deeper carbon footprint, it turns out, than Americans who live cheek by jowl in urban towers. And a second paradox follows from the first. When environmentalists resist new construction in their dense but environmentally friendly cities, they inadvertently ensure that it will take place somewhere else—somewhere with higher carbon emissions. Much local environmentalism, in short, is bad for the environment.

….

Living in the country is not the right way to care for the Earth. The best thing that we can do for the planet is build more skyscrapers.

Keep in mind, of course, that the typical Hong Kong flat is smaller than the typical American apartment, and that Hong Kong’s overall urban density is greater than anywhere in the USA. So the benefits of urban living expounded in this article are only amplified in Hong Kong.

And it gets even better.

Hong Kong’s density is also the foundation of my second big selling point. Hong Kong is so dense that it can support – I think without much dispute – the most comprehensive and efficient public transport network on the planet.

This means you don’t need a car to live here.

Ah, the car! Is there a wedge issue that more neatly separates White People from the rest of us? Is there a hotter topic in the overheated rhetoric swirling around the topics of pollution, global warming, sustainable lifestyles, and on and on? Does the leering maw of the Demon of Earthly Destruction closely resemble the grille of my first car, i.e. a 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle with an absolutely maniacally wonderful 350-cubic inch V8 under the hood? We know the answers.

I’ve written about the issue of buying a car in Hong Kong, and about commuting without one. I’m actually an agnostic on the issue. But I’m also a small, petty sort of fellow, so I can’t help but feel great warm waves of schadenfreude and self-satisfaction when I browse through organs of Whiteness such as the New York Times to find extensive, anguished commentary on the question of car ownership.

See, the thing is, Hong Kong people who want to live car-free face virtually none of the disadvantages that people in many other urban areas must (very legitimately!) deal with.

Public transport in Hong Kong is excellent because:

It is frequent. In many places, if you miss your bus or train on the way in to work, you’re in the soup. That’s very rarely the case in Hong Kong. Most people have no need to plan their lives down to the minute to make sure they get ‘their’ bus or train. MTR trains at peak times run almost continuously, and even at the slowest times they have gaps of just five minutes or so. Buses typically have 5-10 minute waits.

It is cheap. Since Hong Kong’s density permits the overlap of transport networks (i.e. you frequently can choose between two or more forms of public transport to get from A to B), there’s at least a rudimentary market effect. Also, since ordinary Hong Kong people depend so heavily on public transport, the government has always been very careful about allowing price increases – this dates all the way back to the Star Ferry riots in the 1960s. So prices for all forms of public transport – including taxis – are very reasonable indeed by world standards.

It is clean. Although you may find yourself on the occasional dingy minibus or older double-decker big bus, most are in good shape. The trams are a bit hot and sweaty, but they’re cute and your ride on one is usually just a few minutes’ duration. The MTR and KCR are amazingly tidy and well-maintained, given the incredible daily crush of commuters they handle. And even the island ferries, once Hong Kong’s bastions of public transport squalor, are now comfortable and pleasant.

It is safe. There is virtually no street crime in Hong Kong, so public transport is worry-free. By contrast, in many urban areas (e.g. in my homeland, the USA) lots and lots of people claim to support public transport in the abstract, but you just try to get them on a city bus at 11:00 pm on a Saturday night.

It is (mostly) respectable. There is not too much stigma associated with taking public transport – although that is not to say there is none. No, you’re not going to likely to run into Hong Kong’s upper class on the MTR, but lots of quite upper-middle class types here will still take buses or the train, especially when commuting.

Finally, when I was reading through some of the hundreds of comments on that NYT car article, it was interesting to see how many of those arguing for keeping a car mentioned their need to have one to carry away the fruits of their weekly supermarket shopping expeditions. Yes, indeed. Well, in Hong Kong that problem is easily solved as well – almost all urban housing is within easy walking distance from at least a small supermarket. And even if you don’t feel like making lots of trips to one, you can simply hire a domestic helper to do it for you.

Let me close on a slightly more serious note. My sometimes-snide tone here notwithstanding, I do want to stress how remarkable Hong Kong is as a potential model for eco-friendly, post-industrial-age life. You may not like everything about it, but you can’t say it’s not a viable alternative.