Island Crest in Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong. Island Crest was developed by the
Urban Renewal Authority, a government agency with a long and consistent history of tearing down vibrant streetscapes of old shophouses and replacing them with luxury towers atop extremely crude podiums.
The Urban Renewal Authority is actually a tool for private developers to profit off valuable land by providing a simplified expropriation process and large-scale land assembly. Reminder: Hong Kong doesn't have universal suffrage, and collusion between the government and developers runs deep.
I'm surprised the URA even bothers to pretend to be a public service. None of their urban "renewal" projects have ever rehoused displaced residents or businesses in the redevelopment. I put renewal in quotes because they rarely actually renew anything. More often entire city districts are wholly bulldozed and replaced with the most banal podium development.
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Here's another one, "The Merton" in Kennedy Town, which also replaced a few blocks of affordable old shophouses. Ground floors of URA buildings are mostly long stretches of the following elements: blank wall, ventilation grille, noisy bus terminal, emergency exit doors, smoke vents, parking entrances, etc etc.
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"Langham Place" in Mong Kok. Do you see a trend developing? Blank podiums which tower over the older buildings across the street.
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"The Zenith", Wan Chai. A rare example incorporating ground-floor retail. (still garbage)
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"Vista", Sham Shui Po. Looks more like a parking garage or a bomb-proof telephone exchange than a residential building.
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Kwun Tong Town Centre, in the poorest district of the city, has been demolished in its entirety by the URA. Will be replaced with more wildly unaffordable luxury housing geared toward Mainland investors, plus a giant shopping mall filled with chain stores. No affordable housing.
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