[briandon]

I don't disagree with you per se, but I have spent nearly a decade living in a city which has amazingly great public transport, very dense living arrangements (30-story highrises are the norm), and people walk constantly.

Are you ready to go grocery shopping pretty much every single day or every other day? Or can you manage to be at home during a 6-hour window for the grocery delivery if you want to shop once a week for that stuff?

Would you get stressed waiting, at least twice a day (leaving from your floor and returning from the lobby), for elevators in a 30-story building? Remember that people in wheelchairs, kids taking their bikes downstairs to ride, workmen w/materials/tools, people moving house, etc. are all going to be using the elevators.

If you're out somewhere and buy anything (in my case, yesterday, it was a new electric toothbrush) that's not groceries or something large, like an air conditioner, you're going to have to lug it around with you until you go home, even if you have several other stops to make or errands to do. There's no such thing as going to your car and putting something in the trunk until later.

Are you ready for even short trips to take much longer? You'll need to get out of your highrise, walk for some time until you get to the public transport pick-up point (bus stop, train platform, etc.), wait a while, ride the public transport (which usually moves slower than a car even if it weren't making a bunch of other stops between your home and ultimate destination's drop-off point), and then, finally, you'll have to walk some more to reach wherever it was that you wanted to go.

If you already live in a highrise, use public transportation exclusively, and don't own a car, then I'm glad that the experience hasn't soured you on high-density living and public transportation.

[kiwidrew]

Except that's not the only style of living that HK offers.

Some people do opt for the arrangement you've just described, living in e.g. the "Lake Silver" high rises way out at the very end of the Ma On Shan metro line. Most of them don't seem to mind it, even though it means long rides on the bus or MTR to go anywhere.

But it's just as easy to live a few stops from work, in an older neighbourhood like Sa Ying Poon or Prince Edward with smaller buildings, where you have three different supermarkets within a five-minute walk and are surrounded by shops selling everythinng imaginable.

I mean, how many cities have two overlapping and completely independent public transport networks? HK has the "official" bus and metro system, but the red minibuses are essentially a rogue invisible-hand-of-the-market creation that just sprung up organically. And unlike most American cities, where the public transport struggles to even survive, both of these HK networks are thriving...

[briandon]

The overwhelming majority of people in HK live in highrises, virtually all new housing being built here (unless your uncle is a village chief and/or you're a male who can prove that he is of villager stock and has a right to build a village house) consists of giant highrises, and most of the existing housing stock consists of the same.

So, while you're correct in saying that highrise living is not the only choice, it is the reality that most people here are living in highrises and that the small percentage of people living in smaller buildings will continue to dwindle over time.

Regarding older, low-rise, buildings, those low-rise residential buildings that do exist and which aren't out in the boonies are being gradually "redeveloped", as you may already know. The government or a developer buys a certain percentage of the flats and compels the holdouts to sell, usually at a price that won't permit the residents to buy a newer flat in the same neighborhood, demolishes the building(s), and erects a huge tower block.

Regarding the minibuses, a car or taxi is still faster than taking a minibus for the same reasons that a car or taxi are faster than the MTR: no walking/waiting/walking and you're going to your destination directly rather than following a route and making lots of stops at places that you don't want to go and then.

This is a separate issue, but haven't you noticed that most of the drivers are visibly impoverished (raggy-looking clothing, many missing/black teeth, etc.) and many are senior citizens? The minibuses, especially the red ones, also tend to speed and get into lots of accidents. Rarely does more than a day or two pass without a report of a minibus ramming into something and most of the passengers being injured, or two minibuses t-boning each other and two minibus-fulls of passengers being injured, etc.

Also, you do know that most of the red minibuses are under triad control, that the drivers have to pay a huge lump sum when they start driving and then "parking fees" every month thereafter?

[gobbluth]

I do live in an urban environment (NYC for a decade now), and you're... confused on some counts. Public transportation is radically faster than cars, at least in any city with a fraction of the same population. Have you ever tried to drive through Atlanta or Miami? And living in an urban environment doesn't demand high-rise towers -- walkable townhouses and height-restricted buildings abound, and there's no shortage of human-friendly neighborhoods in New York. (I also hate midtown Manhattan, but that's nowhere near representative of city living.)

If you absolutely need a car for big purchases, Zipcar and its competitors are easily accessible. If you're older, you have BETTER options here in the form of delivery services than you'd have in a rural setting. If you'd like to get a little further away from the city in a nice, quiet Queens neighborhood, you can hope on the express train and read a book while you're zipped to your destination.

Hong Kong is a different animal just because it's, well, Hong Kong. But nothing in the world quite compares to that, and you really shouldn't associate New York or Paris with that crazy city.

[briandon]

The walkable townhouses and height-restricted buildings you're talking about (1.) only exist so long as the aesthetic/lifestyle value of a low-risey city balances against the demand for more housing and developers' desire to make money and (2.) make public transport trips take longer because you have to walk past more of your neighbors' low-rise buildings to get to a public transport hub and the bus/train/whatever has to travel farther (past the low-rises) to get anywhere and also make more stops if more hubs/stations have been built to offset the problem of people living relatively far apart in those low-rise buildings.

[gobbluth]

You, sir, have never been to Brooklyn.

[briandon]

Please, do step into my handy dandy time machine. We'll set it for thirty years in the future and then step out for a moment and count the number of hip, low-rise brownstones that we can see and then try to pick out the Brooklyner from amongst the other highrises.

I think that you're living in Brooklyn and enjoying it, which is great, and idealizing it without thinking about how Brooklyn is actually changing right around you.

[The Brooklyner is a 51-story skyscraper recently built in Brooklyn: the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyner ]

[bhickey]

> Or can you manage to be at home during a 6-hour window for the grocery delivery if you want to shop once a week for that stuff?

Having left London, I really do miss Ocado. Unlike the silly timing restrictions you suggest, they delivered at any hour between about 0700 and 2300 with one hour windows.

> ...ride the public transport (which usually moves slower than a car even if it weren't making a bunch of other stops between your home and ultimate destination's drop-off point)

This is just the tragedy of the commons at work. Outside of the City there are bus lanes (shared with cabs). It isn't the job of society to subsidize drivers in congested areas. There's simply no political will to squeeze private autos.

> If you already live in a highrise

You're tilting at a straw man. Single family houses and high rises aren't the only options. Greater London, for example, is full of four story row houses.

[briandon]

> Having left London, I really do miss Ocado. Unlike the > silly timing restrictions you suggest, they delivered at > any hour between about 0700 and 2300 with one hour > windows.

We really do deal with six-hour windows here (and the delivery people tend to miss even those and come late). One-hour windows sound great, especially if they never missed them. You're still stuck waiting around for a delivery person, though, even if it is just for an hour once a week.

> This is just the tragedy of the commons at work. Outside > of the City there are bus lanes (shared with cabs). It > isn't the job of society to subsidize drivers in > congested areas. There's simply no political will to > squeeze private autos.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I wasn't saying that driving was faster than taking a bus in my city, though it is. I was actually thinking of the local rail system, the MTR. Taking a taxi anywhere or driving yourself is almost always faster than taking the MTR.

By it's very nature, public transport, which has to run on a schedule and leave gaps between runs to allow passengers to accumulate and then make multiple stops is, is often going to be slower than an individual getting into a personal vehicle and driving themselves to their destination.

> You're tilting at a straw man. Single family houses and > high rises aren't the only options. Greater London, for > example, is full of four story row houses.

I'm not British and haven't been to London (I just live in a former British colony whose development was planned by British civil servants), but the reference to Greater London seems to refer to London plus its suburbs.

Hong Kong has a lot of three-story "village houses" in what passes for rural areas here but which in reality are more like suburbs or outer boroughs.

HK village houses don't have elevators. Do the four-story row houses in Greater London have them? If so, then great. If not, then I would imagine it must be quite unpleasant for the people on the higher floors to carry their groceries (or anything else) up to their flats.

[hollerith]

Please tell us which city you just described.

[briandon]

I live in Hong Kong.

[bane]

It's not much different than in Seoul, Manhattan and central Paris.