New towns of Hong Kong

Before the 1950s, most of the population in Hong Kong lived in Hong Kong's urban area, namely the central and western parts of the Kowloon Peninsula and the northern coast of Hong Kong Island. After the Second World War, however, the population boomed. The drastic growth was due to prolonged political unrest in Mainland China, which brought a large number of refugees to Hong Kong from the 1950s to the early 1970s and led to the rapid advance of Hong Kong's economy from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The government in the 1950s originally had no plans to deal with the problem of housing the increasing population, until the Shek Kip Mei Fire in 1953 destroyed the homes of 58,203 people in a shanty town. The government, for the first time, built public housing to accommodate the victims and found a change in housing policy essential. On the one hand, the government began to provide public housing, and on the other hand it proposed to develop “satellite towns” in undeveloped areas in order to make more lands available for the increasing housing need. At first, it identified Tsuen Wan and Kwai Chung as sites for the first satellite towns, but it then found that Kwun Tong, located in then-underdeveloped eastern Kowloon, would be attractive to people living in the slums of nearby Ngau Tau Kok. Thus, in the late 1950s, Kwun Tong became the first developed satellite town. Around the same time, the government also began to develop Tsuen Wan as a satellite town. In 1967, using a similar concept on a smaller scale, it also built Wah Fu Estate, which lay to the west of Aberdeen in Pok Fu Lam, in a remote corner on the southern side of Hong Kong Island.

In the late 1960s and the 1970s, another stage of new-town developments was launched and the term "new town" was officially adopted. As most flat lands in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island had already been developed, the government proposed to build new towns in New Territories, a largely rural area at that time.[1] Kwun Tong, as the first satellite town, was not considered as a new town, as it was part of Kowloon and regarded by the government as part of the urban area. The first phase of new town development was unveiled in 1973, including Tsuen Wan New Town, which as a satellite town was not brought to full-scale development, and also Sha Tin New Town[1] and Tuen Mun New Town. These new towns were intended to accommodate a few hundred thousand people each.[2] For example, according to the first plan in 1961, the government planned to accommodate 360,000 people in Sha Tin once the entire new town had been built; the estimated population in Sha Tin rose to 500,000 in the planning of the early 1970s.[1] In the corresponding areas, land was reclaimed to create new space for some of the new towns. These newly developed towns, maturing in the 1980s, provided new homes to more than 1 million Hong Kong people.

The first phase having succeeded, Hong Kong government proposed later in the 1970s to build New Towns in other areas as well. As part of this second phase, the development of Tai Po New Town,[3] Yuen Long New Town and Fanling-Sheung Shui New Town[4] began in 1976, 1977 and 1978 respectively; the extension of the Tsuen Wan New Town to Tsing Yi Town also began in the mid-1970s, and was regarded as part of the second phase of new-town development. The third phase of new-town development was proposed in the 1980s, including Tseung Kwan O New Town,[5] Tin Shui Wai New Town and Ma On Shan, the last of which was officially considered as an extension of Sha Tin New Town. The fourth phase of new-town development, so far the last, commenced in 1996 and developed North Lantau New Town (only Tung Chung was developed, although originally the plan included the area near Tai Ho Wan[6]), as a supporting town for the then-newly constructed airport in Chek Lap Kok. At present, there are nine new towns in all.[2]

New Town development slowed in the 2000s, on account of unexpectedly slow population growth. Indeed, even the development of North Lantau New Town was hindered: the population of North Lantau New Town was just 80,000 in early 2010s, less than half of the 200,000 originally planned. No additional new towns were established in the 2000s and early 2010s, and new-town development was restricted to further development of the ones already developed. In response to excess housing demand since the late 2000s, however, which resulted in extremely high housing prices and rents as well as very long queues in pending for public housing, government considered to add to the number of new towns again. In the early 2010s, the government proposed to build new towns in Hung Shui Kiu, Kwu Tung, North Fanling and Ping Che-Ta Kwu Ling.[7] The proposals are matters of heated public debate; if the proposals are adopted, construction work is expected to begin in the mid-2010s, and its first phase to end in the early 2020s.

Typically, a new town was planned and developed around a town centre, which was the town's business, cultural and traffic hub. For example, in the town centres of Tuen Mun New Town[9] and Sha Tin New Town, one can find shopping centres, public libraries, theatres, government offices, parks, and bus terminuses. Any new town with a railway station had its town centre planned near it. Tsuen Wan New Town was distinctive in having more than one town centre, situated around Tsuen Wan station and Kwai Fong station, and later also around Tsing Yi station after Tsuen Wan New Town had expanded to Tsing Yi. With the exception of Tin Shui Wai New Town, the only new town without a clear town centre, the new towns’ town centres became vibrant business and cultural hubs of their areas.

Transport is vital for the new towns, and thus is planned with care. Before the development of new towns, most areas in the New Territories were poorly connected; new development required both roads and public transport.

To ease the traffic between the new towns and the urban area, new roads and highways were built. For example, Tuen Mun Road and Tolo Highway were two principal highways built in the late 1970s and early 1980s to connect the new towns in western New Territories and eastern New Territories to New Kowloon; tunnels (e.g. Lion Rock Tunnel and Tate's Cairn Tunnel) and bridges (e.g. Tsing Yi Bridge) were also built to shorten travel times.

Public transport was also developed. Many new towns were planned with new railway lines (e.g. MTR stations in Tsuen Wan New Town, Tseung Kwan O New Town, Tung Chung and the Ma On Shan Rail for Ma On Shan[1]). The Kowloon–Canton Railway was electrified in the early 1980s in order to provide convenient transport to the new towns at Fanling-Sheung Shui, Tai Po and Sha Tin.

New towns in the north-western New Territories were connected by Light Rail Transit, although at the time they remained the only new towns without direct railway service to the urban areas. Because there was no railway transport, and Tuen Mun Road and Castle Peak Road were the only links to Kowloon, the traffic between these new towns and the urban area was highly congested, prompting the government to study new road and rail links. The situation improved when Tai Lam Tunnel opened in 1998. These new towns in the north-western New Territories were finally connected to urban areas with direct railway service when KCR West Rail (now part of the Tuen Ma Line) opened in 2003.

New towns’ residential areas have both private and public housing.

When new towns were first developed, land reclamation was an important way of gaining land to build on. Large areas were gained by land reclamations in Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun, Tai Po, Tsing Yi, Ma On Shan, Tin Shui Wai, Tseung Kwan O and Tung Chung – 7 of 9 new towns, with Fanling-Sheung Shui New Town and Yuen Long New Town being the only exceptions.[12][13]