So it is doubly sobering to be pointed at a site that documents the living conditions of some residents of Kong Kong. As reported in DETAILdaily yesterday, a Hong Kong Chinese human rights organisation, the
“Society for Community Organisation” (SoCO), commissioned a series
of photographs of overcrowded living spaces in the city. The photographic commission was in
response to a piece that appeared in the Economist, which in 2012 rated Hong Kong as the world’s most liveable city. SoCO point out that the article did not appear to
consider the plight of around 100,000 people living in just 4 square
metres in what are known as “cubicle apartments”,
created by subdividing already small apartments into multiple rooms.
I've only just returned from a quick working trip to India, where you still only have to scratch the surface of the newly clean metropolises of Mumbai or Chennai to discover the now less visible urban poor, for whom 4m2 of actual shelter would be paradise.
So everything is relative. But that shouldn't deter one from being outraged both at the unsustainable material profligacy of the developed world as represented by Australia's MacMansions, nor forgive the social unsustainability of the developed world, if its general well being still relies on some of its citizens having to do with so little.
