Wanna see hell on Earth?
You might think of Hong Kong as a highly developed financial center filled with modern skyscrapers, urban streets, and lifestyle but there was a dark side to it. Let me introduce you to the Kowloon Walled City, an ungoverned, densely populated settlement in Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Aerial view of Kowloon Walled City in the late 80s.
Kowloon Walled City had a population of 50,000 living in an area of 6.4 acres making it the most densely populated area in the world with nearly 2 million people per sq.km.!! Imagine if all the human race will start to live as close as people in Kowloon Walled city did, then all 7.7 billion of us could fit in the state of Rhode Island in the US.
Imagine living here!
The Walled City was the center of local gangs and triads and had high rates of prostitution, gambling, smuggling, and drug abuse. Even the local police feared the place.
The ground floor of the Walled City was filled with doctors and dentists which ran their businesses without any official licenses. Restaurants offered horrendous meals such as dog meat. No attention to sanitation and cleaning was given.
There was a network of dark, dirty alleyways that connected housing units deep inside the Walled City. Pipes were constantly leaking and people either threw garbage on the terrace or on the alleyways below. The space was so dense that it blocked almost all of the light coming through from up, leaving the place down below completely shrouded in darkness. The local government never interfered with the Walled City. This made the place attractive to gangsters, pimps, and drug smugglers. Residents on average paid 5 USD per month for a ridiculously tiny 40 sq. ft. block. Thousands of these little rooms existed side by side stretched out across the Walled City. About 500 buildings were constructed without any official builder license. Floors would be added randomly according to the demand until the buildings reached the 14th floor. Sewage and sanitation were non-existent. The main sources of real employment inside the horrible conditions of the Walled City were mainly small metal fabrication shops. This contributes to the disgusting pollution inside the city.
Despite the horrors of the Walled City, there was still a courtyard in the middle, which was the only place on the street level where the sun could reach.
The Walled City was located just half a mile away from Kai Tak Airport which contributes to the major problem of noise pollution due to the planes passing over it. There is a theory that the City stopped growing after 14 stories as it would cause the planes to crash into it.
Life inside the City was cramped, dirty, loud, and inhospitable still more and more people kept attracted to the city over time. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately, the hellhole no longer exists as it was demolished by the Hong Kong government in 1994.
Look at this picture. Guess which country?
Seems like some third world country. Isn’t it?
Look now
Pretty sure, it’s Asia. Right?
Well, look and guess now
Yeah, many could have figure it out right? Those don’t know these are slums, in INDIA.
This is how nearly 2 million people, lead their life. Where? In the financial capital of the country. Mumbai.
Mumbai is one of the most visited places by foreign tourists as it is like the commercial hub of India. But the commotion notion of the Westerners that India is a third world country is that they tend to look more the right side rather than the left side in the city
And it has been decades of protests, but the government just don’t come up with a better planning to improve those people’s lifestyle.
Many houses don’t have toilets and they bath and clean in a polluted common water bodies and lakes, that surround them.
This is another Mumbai-The richest city of India. The home to maximum billionaires and millionaires of the nation.
And amidst this dynamic city lies the, one of the biggest slums in Asia
I mean, being near to money making regions like colaba, this locality hasn’t or will not see any development in the near future. Whom can we blame? The people who are not cooperative to the government? Or the people who were supposed to make their lives better, but yet due to pressure and multiple reasons, left them for what they are?
It doesn’t matter, if we are a trillion dollar economy, if we have millions of people living like this in our financial capital.
