TODAY it may be crowded, bustling and dynamic. But in four years, Hong Kong could be just overloaded, dirty and buckling under the strain of an extra 600,000 people.
Garbage disposal and sewerage systems will be stretched, passengers will jostle for public transport, thousands will clamour for cheap housing and school places while an army of the poorly educated and unskilled scramble for the few jobs available to them.
Tourists will weigh up whether to come and vie with hordes of locals for seats on buses and the MTR, and face queues to see the pleasure spots.
A new underclass could balloon, with hundreds of thousands of unskilled, uneducated and poor growing increasingly discontented as the SAR's economic star dims.
Academics warn this could be the disturbing reality for Hong Kong by 2004, unless the Government quickly assesses the number of mainlanders expected and starts work on the infrastructure required.
'If we take the maximum impact scenario, the figures being bandied around are [a total of] 400,000 over and above the [current one-way permit quota of] 150 a day,' said Professor Peter Hills, director of the University of Hong Kong's Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management.
