Overcrowding – a ticking bomb of Hong Kong
Overcrowding has been plaguing Hong Kong for many decades since the extensive shift of population in the late 19th centuries. Hong Kong has been ranked the top 5 dense population per kilometer square in recent years and is anticipated the situation will conti
nue. In my opinion, this grave problem has been seriously damaging the quality of life in Hong Kong, which illustrates my endorsement to the above sentence.
A major negative influence of overcrowding is that the demand of housing flats is boosted. As the supply of housing flats and government policies cannot adapt to the rising demand, the value of housing flats has appreciated. Despite the fact the government has introduced policies to alleviate the problem, because of the insane lift of the housing price, owning an apartment is becoming an impossible mission for a white-collar. Therefore, the only choice of white-collars is to rent a flat for accommodation, yet the rental price usually takes a large proportion of their income, which decline their purchasing power on daily lives. Thus, citizens have less idle money to spend, adversely affecting the quality of life of a community.
Apart from deteriorating our living standard, the problem of overcrowding will moreover lead to income redistribution. Since the population can be a factor affecting the transfer payments of the government, overcrowding will bring about a larger dispersion in welfare distribution and welfare received per capita will be lessened. Moreover, overcrowding can worsen the unemployment situation as the job vacancies may not be sufficient to satisfy all the demand for jobs. Therefore, the expenditure of government on unemployment subsidy rises, which leads to a reduction of government expenditure on other aspects such as public constructions. Constructions of infrastructures may be reduced or delayed and negatively influencing the quality of life in a community.
Overcrowding also contribute to a sacrificial city planning. As we all know, Hong Kong has been tortured by shortage of land for years. Overcrowding further worsens the problem as the government has a gradient notion on dealing with housing shortage first. Hence, the land uses on other aspects such recreation and social centers will decline greatly, which will deprive the chance of citizens to leisure. If the leisure time of citizens decreases, the stress of citizens will increase, which damages the quality of life in a community.
All in all, overcrowding brings a lot of unfavorable effects to our society, so the government should fight tooth and nail to tackle the problem and provide a better living environment to the citizens.
