Think Your Home’s Small? Look At Hong Kong’s Illegal Microapartments
COMPLAINTS ABOUT NEEDING MORE SHOE STORAGE OR HAVING NO SPACE FOR YOUR THIRD BIKE? PLEASE. IN HONG KONG, THE PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT AVERAGES $1,300.
It can be tough to grasp the reality of living in what amounts to a very functional closet through facts and figures, though. These images, which show us a bird’s eye view of several Hong Kong microapartments, do a much better job. They were produced by a Chinese human rights group called the Society for Community Organization, whose mission is to promote equality amongst citizens. “Grassroots people are struggling day in and day out to keep their head above water,” SoCO explains. “Standing in the line of dejection are caged lodgers, tenants living in appalling conditions, aged singletons, street-sleepers, mothers with no one-way permit to live in Hong Kong, families made up of new immigrants and boat dwellers.”
They estimate that over 100,000 people are living in unauthorized apartments in the city, a number that may well be low.
