From a military blueprint to drugs and complete lawlessness – Kowloon City stands out in history as a city popular for extreme reasons.
Kowloon Walled City was once the most densely populated city in the world with a density of 3,300,000 people per square mile. Kowloon was such a lawless maze of alleyways and secret staircases, that police from the outside world would rarely venture in without a sizable group. Originally built as a military base with walls 13 feet high and 15 feet thick an influx of immigrants made regulation and governance impossible by the Chinese authorities, as well as the British administration in Hong Kong. Triad gangs moved into position to rule the hazardous city maze. In the 1950s and 60s drugs, prostitution and gang influence reached a point where Hong Kong police could no longer police the city. When the city was eventually siezed, 4,000 pounds of drugs, or 1/10 of a pound of illegal substances per person was found. From 1987 a six-year eviction process began, where the city was raized to become a peaceful park.
Ironically, Kowloon City has been used to reference Manhattan’s growing population in a creative article via The New York Times asking how many people Manhattan could hold. Nuts. The article, Having Fun With Population Density further posits that in 2005, the average Californian had half the carbon footprint of the average American.
Do city planners of today need to consider ‘addiction clusters’ of population bases needs - when they architecturally plan a city? If so, wouldn’t it be wise to create new trends (eg: create better addictions that become cultural norms) people gravite towards. Leave some suggestions on the blog, if you have a clue as to what winning trends could be for the best cities in the future. Old fashioned ideas that are still goodies are also fine by me.
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 5.4.12~
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