Kowloon Walled Nightmare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

This is just a question: By just how much can I plausibly increase Hong Kong's population before it becomes hideously intolerable? I'm thinking far more of HK manages to resemble the walled city, thus allowing for far more people to somehow manage to crowd themselves into the small peninsula. The POD is the signing of the lease of Lantau Island in 1898. You can for your purposes, assume that the mainland Chinese will deliver as much power and water as the city needs, no matter what the population.
 
The Walled City is possibly the densest permanent neighbourhood ever. Nearly 2 000 000 inhabitants per square kilometer. HK is over-all not even withing shouting distance of that. The only way I see of getting more of HK be like the Walled City is to have 1 or two more enclaves like it. Getting all of HK that sense would mean it'd fit the entire population of China.
 
I'm thinking more enclaves like that, but a more high-rise version of said enclaves. Basically, very high density areas of mixed residential/commercial and industrial use, usually caused by somewhat uncontrolled immigration to the area. This in addition to differing land laws (allowing limited forms of actual land ownership), might result in different population and settlement patterns.
 
Well, you may need to build a arcology to achieve that, but any cities with pre- modern tech probably cannot exceed what aincent Beijing had packed between its walls.
 

Hendryk

Banned
The Kowloon Walled City, its squalor notwithstanding, was an interesting experiment in lawless urbanism--a city existing with no formal political management whatsoever. That the place managed to reach such an insanely high population density without descending into mayhem is probably due to the fact that its inhabitants shared a strong Confucian ethos, but cultural considerations aside, the fact that it spontaneously achieved a form of spontaneous, bottom-up collective organization is fascinating in itself.

I've found a nice website about the place.
 
The Kowloon Walled City, its squalor notwithstanding, was an interesting experiment in lawless urbanism--a city existing with no formal political management whatsoever. That the place managed to reach such an insanely high population density without descending into mayhem is probably due to the fact that its inhabitants shared a strong Confucian ethos, but cultural considerations aside, the fact that it spontaneously achieved a form of spontaneous, bottom-up collective organization is fascinating in itself.

I've found a nice website about the place.

As a HKer born, raised and educated locally, I've to say this is not accurate. While no mayhem occur, the city is a criminal haven and one can find all kind of vice dens there. The triad was in control thus a prevented kind of 'order' did exist, but it's not what ordinary people would want to abide by. Also, the residents didn't isolated themselves from the external community, a lot of people live in the city but work or study in the community- at - large. As for your notion on confucian ethos, I think that's been put on the back burner long time ago. :D
 
Speaking as a mainlander (and a Mandarin speaker at that), I can tell you that KWC wasn't *THAT* messed up by Chinese standards. Sure there was a crapload of vice going on there, but at least the people didn't seem to prey upon one another in a brutally depraved fashion (see Cultural Revolution). What is vice to some is virtue to others. What I'm looking for the sort of spontaneous generation/appearance of a community that characterized KWC so well. What I'm thinking for my Longstreet TL is a much larger KWC, followed by private land ownership laws in HK itself, allowing developers to treat the land somewhat more loosely than OTL (certain regulations still apply though). Add this to the skyscrapers popping up all over the place, as well as walkways between buildings, and you get this excellent hive like effect that's almost cyberpunkish in nature (and totally awesome).
 
Speaking as a mainlander (and a Mandarin speaker at that), I can tell you that KWC wasn't *THAT* messed up by Chinese standards. Sure there was a crapload of vice going on there, but at least the people didn't seem to prey upon one another in a brutally depraved fashion (see Cultural Revolution). What is vice to some is virtue to others. What I'm looking for the sort of spontaneous generation/appearance of a community that characterized KWC so well. What I'm thinking for my Longstreet TL is a much larger KWC, followed by private land ownership laws in HK itself, allowing developers to treat the land somewhat more loosely than OTL (certain regulations still apply though). Add this to the skyscrapers popping up all over the place, as well as walkways between buildings, and you get this excellent hive like effect that's almost cyberpunkish in nature (and totally awesome).

Wait, I thought this site was banned in the PRC... Unless you are a former mainlander.

But speaking on the city... It would be really interesting if this could expand.
 
The Walled City is possibly the densest permanent neighbourhood ever. Nearly 2 000 000 inhabitants per square kilometer. HK is over-all not even withing shouting distance of that. The only way I see of getting more of HK be like the Walled City is to have 1 or two more enclaves like it. Getting all of HK that sense would mean it'd fit the entire population of China.
That population total would have to be industrial era. Before then, no city seems to ever had a population of 1 million or there abouts. One major problem is supplying one with food; cities of this size are either imperial capitals or (as today) part of a stable trading and transport network. A second is water, again which has to be secured. Without both of these, people will leave. I agree that the original posting assumes both, but would only take one local warlord to throw a spanner in the works.
 

Hendryk

Banned
As for your notion on confucian ethos, I think that's been put on the back burner long time ago. :D
We may not have the same definition. I don't mean the outward stuff, respect for rituals and all that. I mean the deeply interiorized value system. It's the one that matters for the purpose of having people living together tightly packed without going at each other's throats.

Sure there was a crapload of vice going on there, but at least the people didn't seem to prey upon one another in a brutally depraved fashion (see Cultural Revolution).
Yeah, that's what I meant. Sure there was plenty of illegal activity going on, but people did manage to go from day to day without fearing for their lives.

Wait, I thought this site was banned in the PRC...
It isn't, actually.
 
That population total would have to be industrial era.
Well, yes, the KWC only existed in the industrial era. Also, it didn't actually have 2M people, that's just how dense it was. Insane density, but not that large an area. That was one of the reasons it could get that dense: the roads and greenspaces outside it.
 
Wait, I thought this site was banned in the PRC... Unless you are a former mainlander.

But speaking on the city... It would be really interesting if this could expand.

Tested twice. Not banned in PRC, nor in the United States. The Great Firewall of China is a myth. But I digress.
 
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