"Cage-coffins" with an area of 2 sq. M. Life in Hong Kong

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Many of us believe that we live in small apartments and walk down the dirty staircases of our entrances. But after the photographs of apartments of Hong Kong residents, the area of which is equal to an ordinary bedroom mattress and not always a standard single-bed mattress, got on the Internet, most of their "small-sized" ones began to value much more. Although it does not fit in my head at all that in Hong Kong, which is the leading financial center of the world, in the 21st century people live in such terrible conditions.

Hong Kong has long been recognized as one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. As the leading business and financial center on the planet, it attracts a huge number of people looking for a better life. Such an influx has become a truly unbearable burden for the city, because there is absolutely no land left for housing construction.

Reference:For the past 9 years, the Special Administrative Region of China has held the palm in real estate prices. And even despite the worldwide decline in prices in the real estate market, the cost per 1 sq. M. in the old house varies from 24, 8 to 27, 5 thousand dollars! In the primary housing stock for a similar area, you will have to pay 1.5 times more - and this is the most budgetary housing. In the elite districts, at least 178, 7 thousand dollars will have to be paid for luxury apartments. for 1 "square".

At the moment, almost 7.5 million people live in Hong Kong, the life of at least 200 thousand of all the townspeople can be called a real hell, because they have to huddle in cells with an area of 1.5-9 square meters. It all depends on the financial capabilities of the person who came to the city with great opportunities to work and live.

Renting a home in the metropolis has become the most profitable business, given that some enterprising Hong Kongers who have their own apartments, using plywood, divided them into cells no more than 0.8 - 1.5 m wide and rent them out to newly arrived seekers of a better life from $ 250 … USA in a month.

Unfortunately, not the authorities of the megalopolis became interested in such shocking living conditions, but an ordinary photographer who devoted 4 whole years in search of those wishing to show their more than modest "apartments". Benny Lam (Benny Lam) was so struck by such a terrible truth about the other side of life sparkling with neon signs of a thriving metropolis, he decided to create a project called "Trap".

During this time, he managed to visit only 100 "coffin cages" (this is what this housing is called), because many are not just shy, they are afraid that the owners will find out about such willfulness and simply kick them out into the street. Benny, recalling his first impressions when he saw such conditions of existence (it has no other name), said: “That day I came home and cried. I felt so bad, such a life should not be the norm … Living here is like sitting in a cage, trapped."

According to the editors of Novate. Ru, housing with such terrible living conditions is created in ordinary apartments, which the owners illegally divide into narrow cells using ordinary plywood, and sometimes just a lattice. There are also such precedents when a standard room is turned into a two-tier room, and then everything is still divided into cubicles.

It is already reaching the point that 20 (!) People live in an apartment with an area of about 37 m². In such "booths-coffins" (if the partitions are made of plywood), 1-2 m wide.only a mattress can fit, and even then not always of the required length, because some "apartments" are so tiny that people cannot stand up to their full height, but even fully stretch their legs is not always possible.

The situation is worse when it is an ordinary two-tier cage, viewed from all sides. And the worst thing is that such hellish housing costs exorbitant money, for renting one "coffin cage" you will need to pay 250 dollars. per month.

For those who can allocate a large amount, there is a "cooler" housing. Separate "coffin apartments" for rent, which have a sleeping place and even their own bathroom and kitchen, but all this will be located on an area of no more than 3-4 square meters! It’s scary to even imagine the unsanitary conditions in which these people are.

Looking at all these pictures, it is not surprising that many did not agree to shoot their "home", but those who did "hope that as soon as people see these pictures, they will receive some kind of support."

It is not known how the authorities reacted to the disclosure of the living conditions of some of the townspeople, but they voiced their plans, which provide for the demolition of old buildings and the construction of housing with the most rational distribution of the area.

Interesting information: At the moment, concepts are being developed for the creation of two artificial islands in the water area adjacent to the island to Lantau, providing an appropriate transport interchange. The Hong Kong authorities are planning to build 260 thousand apartments on them, 70% of which will be social housing. But only the construction work of the much-needed housing stock will begin no earlier than 2025, and the first tenants will be able to see their new apartments only in 2032, and this is provided that the authorities still decide to allocate at least $ 80 billion for this project.

As it turned out, in Hong Kong you can live your whole life in a “coffin-cage”, and when you go to another world, there will be no place to bury in a human way. At the moment, not only there is nowhere to build housing, but there is no way to allocate a place for a cemetery or columbarium, despite the fact that they are vertical and are located only on steep mountain slopes.

For this reason, many Hong Kongers start saving money to buy a place in the necropolis from a young age.