Hong Kong needs to ensure any underground urban development isn’t another hell on Earth
N. Balakrishnan says the city needs farsighted laws so the profit motive doesn’t rule future underground developments which, with imaginative handling, could be welcome urban sanctuaries for its space-starved populace
Emerging from the hamam onto a crowded but spotlessly clean square, I wondered how the square could be kept so clean with just a few small garbage cans, tastefully sculpted in an old Turkish style.
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The mystery was solved when I saw big trucks pull in at night to yank out the small garbage cans with a big pulley, revealing that the cans had a huge 10-foot square bucket entirely underground.
Garbage thrown into the small cans went through a chute into the big underground box. I realised the Ottomans had long been placing spas and garbage cans below ground in a imaginative way.
So, when I hear Hong Kong’s “planners” talk about expanding urban space underground, I worry not so much about the concept itself but the way it will be implemented.