With a combination of unconventional urban planning, anarchic urbanism, and government failure, Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong is a fascinating place. What was the most crowded, densely-populated place on Earth for 40 years is now demolished, its citizens all evicted. With no governmental bodies or legitimate police force, it was a lawless, self-regulating city.
The city’s construction dates back to the Song dynasty, and it was long caught in the power struggle between China and the British-run Hong Kong government. Institutional abandonment of the city peaked during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 to 1945, a conflict between China and Japan. Administrations fled to tend to the war effort, leaving the people of Kowloon on their own.
The city became increasingly lawless throughout the 1940s, drawing in large populations of people running from the law, looking to engage in organized crime, or suffering from poverty. In the coming decades, the population would increase exponentially, hitting a striking population density of 1.2 million people per square kilometer in 1987 by most estimates. (For context, the population density of Mumbai is 28,210 people per square kilometer.)
The city consisted of around 300 interconnected high-rise buildings. The boundaries of the city were comparatively small and confined, so as more people moved to the city, the buildings grew higher to accommodate them. Typically, building infrastructure and housing is a long, gradual process, requiring governmental supervision and approval; in Kowloon, these processes weren’t in place, so building took place at a rapid rate. Kowloon came to resemble a single unitary block rather than a collection of individual buildings. Most streets were around six feet wide, leading people to create makeshift bridges between the towering buildings in order to travel through the city. The height and clustering of the buildings made it nearly impossible for light to reach the streets, leading locals to begin calling the city Hak Nam, meaning “the City of Darkness.”
With the lack of an official governmental body, Kowloon was in a state of perpetual legal limbo. A system of self-government emerged, with prostitution, drugs, violence, gambling, and even unlicensed medicine and dentistry becoming commonplace. For all intents and purposes, the city was an anarchist society of its own.
In 1987, the British and Chinese governments announced the official demolition of the city. The area had become overtaken by the Triads, a Chinese mafia group. Both governments helped to compensate the 33,000 residents who were displaced, and the demolition of the city finished in 1994.
This case study raises many questions about urban planning, housing, self-governance, and displacement. Since its demolition, there has yet to be a city comparable to Kowloon in terms of density and governance (or lack thereof) — and it’s doubtful there ever will be.
Sources:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/kowloon-walled-city
https://www.businessinsider.com/kowloon-walled-city-photos-2015-2
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23886841#metadata_info_tab_contents
