My Take | New York going the way of Hong Kong with its 'micro-apartments'
We in Hong Kong are accustomed to idolising real world cities like New York. But there is at least one crucial respect in which the Big Apple is following our example: increasingly cramped apartments and shrinking living space.
We in Hong Kong are accustomed to idolising real world cities like New York. But there is at least one crucial respect in which the Big Apple is following our example: increasingly cramped apartments and shrinking living space.
Writing in magazine, journalist Jacoba Urist points out the obvious: New York has a serious housing problem when "it has 1.8 million one- and two-person households, and only one million studios and one-bedroom apartments".
The solution, advocated by former mayor Michael Bloomberg and followed by developers, is to build more "micro-apartments", tiny flats of 250 and 370 square feet. Sound familiar?
New York, of course, has always had small flats. But the point is that they are being promoted as the wave of the future from tycoons like Bloomberg on down.
Developers love it. Why? Because such flats increase the ground value that they can extract from each square foot of space. Property tycoons like Li Ka-shing know all about this.
Over time, this will make housing more expensive for the average Joe or Wong: they either have to pay more to live in the same-sized flats they rent or pay the same to live in ever-smaller flats. Sad to say, Hongkongers know all about it while New Yorkers, especially new arrivals, are just beginning to realise it - hence Urist treating it as news.
