When Hong Kong doesn’t want to be Hong Kong. Via Domainfax:
An international expert on planning healthy cities has warned Sydney against following the Asian model of concentrating high rise around train stations to house a booming population.
Dubbing it “suburban cellulite”, the clusters of towers were designed to give maximum patronage to private railways and retailers, but are now being regretted by Chinese planners, says Guy Perry of construction firm AECOM.
“People are not happy there,” he says.
The global firm’s executive director of building and places for the Asia Pacific, Mr Perry lives in Hong Kong. He says cities such as Paris would be a better model for Sydney’s growth.
Hong Kong’s private metro operator, MTR, is also a property developer, and funds the railway by building 50-storey apartments and shopping malls over and around its stations. The model is called “value capture”.
MTR will operate Sydney’s Metro Northwest private rail line when it opens. The Baird government is considering using “value capture” to fund the metro’s southern extension.
Mr Perry says although the Hong Kong model made economic sense, it was “something to be really careful about”.
…”The new cities [MTR] created around the metro stations are so oriented to create value for themselves at the expense of creating a more general fabric to the city … They are set up almost as fortresses,” he said.
No, no, no. By halving our land, inner city domicile floor space and community areas, tripling the price, and doubling the people, we are driving economic growth at no cost to living standards. And there is absolutely NO WAY TO TURN BACK.
