Opinion | Is Chinese-style land reform the solution to Hong Kong’s housing woes?
- Given that property is viewed as an investment in Hong Kong, increasing land supply will not make housing more affordable
- Rather, Hong Kong needs systemic change and may have to choose between Eastern and Western approaches to land ownership
For years, environmentalists have championed “micro-living” as a way to reduce carbon footprints while optimising the use of space, quality of life and privacy. Hong Kong epitomises these standards.
However, micro flats in Western cities are more generous than the spaces Hongkongers live in. Worse, the majority here cannot even afford a micro flat.
How much more efficiently can we live? How did the idea of owning a home become a luxury, or become the yardstick by which we measure our well-being? To solve our housing problem, we need to understand what caused it.
About two centuries ago, most land was communally owned by traditional societies, higher sovereign powers or churches. Andro Linklater argues in Owning The Earth that, over time, this gave way to the idea of exclusive ownership of land, “the most creative at the same time destructive cultural force in the modern era”, closely tied to the concept of individual freedom and democratic government and institutions.