{"id":20021,"date":"2019-03-25T19:41:13","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T11:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/?p=20021"},"modified":"2019-03-25T19:41:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T11:41:15","slug":"hong-kong-housing-crisis-sets-new-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2019\/03\/25\/20021\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong: Housing crisis sets new records"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hong\nKong faces a housing emergency<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Adam N Lee, Socialist Action<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year after year Hong Kong holds the number\none ranking for the most unaffordable housing in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For young people the situation is terrible.\nThree out of every four people aged 18 to 35 still live with their parents. In\nthe UK the comparable figure is one in four and that\u2019s a new record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest trend in Hong Kong is \u201cco-living\nschemes\u201d for young professionals. These are being marketed as a \u201clifestyle\nchoice\u201d but basically they are hostels designed to cram as many people into a\ntiny space, renting self-contained bunk beds. They\u2019re like an upmarket version\nof the city\u2019s notorious cage homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Co-living scheme<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u201cco-living scheme\u201d recently featured in\nthe South China Morning Post costing HK$3,500 per month to rent a windowless space\nmeasuring two meters wide and one meter high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt least\nI am able to sit up straight in my cabin without hitting my head on the roof,\u201d\n25-year-old Adriel told the newspaper. He works in the real estate sector but\ncan\u2019t afford real estate. That\u2019s capitalism in a nutshell from a workers\u2019\nperspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hong Kong\u2019s housing emergency is a result\nof conscious political decisions by a government beholden to the capitalist\nproperty tycoons. Their profits always come first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crazy property prices<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hong Kong has more mega rich than any other\ncity in the world and 70 percent of their assets are in real estate. According\nto Oxfam, the poverty NGO, there were 26 Hong Kong billionaires with a combined\nwealth of HK$135.3 billion in 2008 when the global banking crisis struck, but this\nrose to 67 billionaires with a total of HK$334.7 billion ten years later. They\ntripled their wealth while most of us are struggling to make a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Hong Kong\u2019s crazy property prices are\nmaking the majority of people worse off. The purchasing power of the city\u2019s\nuniversity graduates has fallen to just a quarter of what it was 30 years ago.\nThis is according to 2019 study by New Youth Forum, a think tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1987, the median monthly income of\nuniversity graduates aged 20-24 was HK$17,490. But this fell to HK$4,492 per\nmonth in 2017. Slow wage growth is one explanation, but skyrocketing property\nprices were the most important factor, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The property tycoons have a complete\nstranglehold over Hong Kong\u2019s economy. They use higher prices to squeeze other\neconomic sectors allowing them to get control over an ever bigger share of the\ntotal economic pie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old colonial government, facing mass\nunrest and challenges to British rule, introduced a series of \u2018keynesian\u2019\npublic spending programmes which included large scale public housing schemes.\nAfter the Chinese dictatorship took over, cementing strong links with the Hong\nKong\u2019s big capitalists, there has been a massive shift of wealth from poor to\nrich. Public housing construction has slowed to a snail\u2019s pace. The housing\nwaiting list is now 5.5 years on average, which is an all-time high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cannot put any trust in the government\nto find a solution. Mass struggle is needed, through marching, protesting, and\nbuilding fighting organisations like trade unions, real student unions and a\nnew workers\u2019 party. The big property companies and banks should be taken into\npublic ownership under our democratic control. That way, housing would become\navailable for everyone. Tens of thousands of cheap public housing for rent\ncould be built every year instead of white elephant and luxury projects for the\nrich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fanling golf course \u2013 a small u-turn<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February, Carrie Lam performed an apparent u-turn and announced that part of the grounds leased to Fanling\u2019s elite Hong Kong Golf Club will be taken back by the government to use for housing construction. This is to defuse public pressure on the government, which previously rejected the idea. Only one-fifth of the 172-hectare golf course, an area mostly used as a car park, will be affected by the government\u2019s plan. So the mega rich club members won\u2019t be crying in their champagne yet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong faces a housing emergency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":20023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[133,124],"tags":[4766,14386,4490,14385,2509,12330],"class_list":{"0":"post-20021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hong-kong","8":"category-news","9":"tag-capitalism","10":"tag-co-living-scheme","11":"tag-hong-kong-en","12":"tag-housing-crisis","13":"tag-poverty","14":"tag-wealth-gap"},"yoast_head":"\nHong Kong: Housing crisis sets new records - China Worker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2019\/03\/25\/20021\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hong Kong: Housing crisis sets new records - 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