Hong Kong’s 10-year challenge fail: better wages but smaller flats, more crowds and ever-present pollution

Let’s take the 10-year challenge a step further. The latest social media craze involves people sharing pictures of themselves from now and a decade ago. It’s all in the name of seeing change – in my case, I can report that, in the older image, I’m 7kg heavier and have more hair. What I’ve got in mind, though, is not individuals and photos, but a casual comparison of Hong Kong next to its throwback self to see what our well-paid government officials have achieved. 

There’s no time or space to go deep into statistics. Anyway, numbers aren’t necessary to prove what we know already: the government’s fiscal reserves are bigger than ever, housing is more unaffordable, the waiting list for public flats is longer and growing, and university students are having trouble finding a decent-paying job after they graduate.

A photo from The Peak or the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront will also confirm that, whatever we’re told, air pollution does not seem to be getting any better and that dirty cloud hanging overhead most of the time may even be worse. Nor has the face of the city changed that much in a decade, the completion of the International Commerce Centre in 2010 being the only significant building added to the famed skyline.

There’s been plenty of major infrastructure finished – the high-speed rail line, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the Kai Tak cruise terminal and, at long last, the Central-Wan Chai Bypass and the first landmark venue at the West Kowloon Cultural District, the Xiqu Centre, where Chinese traditional theatre is showcased. Just how many of us will actually make regular use of these expensive fixtures was the question we were asking ourselves when authorities put them forward, but we have them now whether we want them or not.

Of them, I’ve so far only made use of the bridge to Macau and, having found too much time is wasted in queues at immigration checkpoints and looking for buses, will stick with the convenience of the ferry. Guangdong or farther afield by high-speed train seems more worthwhile and is in the offing, though.