Table of Contents

Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 2. Economic Issues ......................................................................................................................... 3 Cost of land ................................................................................................................................ 4 Affordability................................................................................................................................. 4 Aging Population........................................................................................................................ 5 2. Environmental Issues .................................................................................................................. 6 3. Social Issues ................................................................................................................................ 7 Accessibility ................................................................................................................................. 7 Air quality .................................................................................................................................... 8 Noise Pollution............................................................................................................................. 9 Housing........................................................................................................................................ 9 4. Conclusions and Recommendations ..................................................................................... 10

1. Introduction
Hong Kong is one affluent place where sustainable development has become a declared objective of government, and indeed of many businesses, but which has done far too little to create a truly sustainable economy and society. Despite its extrao rdinary wealth, Hong Kong has terrible roadside pollution, devastated local fisheries, sewage flowing into the sea, infuriating noise pollution, enormous rates of material consumption, too many people living in poor housing, thousands of energy-housing (and un- insulated) skyscrapers, and one of the worlds largest per capita carbon footprints. In short, while it has become a wealthy society, Hong Kongs development has been unnecessarily unsustainable. It is a well-known fact that different transportation systems and urban development strategies lead to different cities and places within them. Hong Kong has a compact urban form and consequently, a compact urban density owing to its topography; the sea and the unstable hills. Hong Kong is thus viewed as a great example of a compact city with a transport system that works very well and that too without the subsidy of the government. A public transport system, and possibly the only one in the world, that makes a profit. Although Hong Kong has implemented sustainability in some areas, it has also appeared as an example of wasteful potential (in terms of sustainable implementation) and thereby a warning to other communities. It is in essence a work in progress. There are signs of success in some areas, and there is a great potential, give the citys wealth and talent, to create one of the most environmentally sustainable societies in the world. This report aims to highlight this potential, and the associated pitfalls, in sustainable development, environmental polic y and related issues. We are perhaps getting ahead of ourselves, before we can even begin to discuss the issues related to sustainable development we must first explicitly define What is Sustainable Development? Although there is much debate about the concept of sustainable development, it is still important to highlight a definition that can be used as a reference point throughout this report. Sustainable development, according to the World Commission on Enviro nment and Development, is: "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." ["Our Common Future", 1987] It suggests economic and social progress without exhausting natural resources or undermining earths ecology. But almost everywhere, environmental conditions are growing worse as more people become more affluent, consuming more natural resources and producing more pollution. It is just as important to consider sustainable transportation in great depth to even begin to answer questions regarding sustainability. In April 2001 the EU Ministry of Transport and Communication at their meeting in Luxemburg adopted the following statement as European Unions definition on Sustainable transport: A sustainable transport is one that:

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 Allows the basic access and development needs of individuals, companies and societies to met safely and in a manner consistent with human and ecosystem health, and promotes equity within and between successive generations; Is affordable, operates fairly and efficiently, offers choice of transport modes, and supports a competitive economy, as well as balanced regional development; Limits emissions and waste within the planet ability to absorb them, uses renewable resources at below their rate of generation, and uses non-renewable resources at or below the rates of development of renewable substitutes while minimizing the impact on the use of land and generation of noise. It is worthy to note that the key aspects of sustainable transport are: accessibility, affordability, fuel consumption, and air and noise pollution. Hong Kong is a fully developed city. Same as other big cities, it is characterized by noise, busy human and vehicular traffic, and by the voracious consumption of goods and resources. For example, we generate more than 6 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) each year, due to our high level of commercial and personal consumption of goods. It is estimated that all our landfills will be full in mid to late 2010s if we continue to create and dispose of waste in the current manner. Sustainable development is required to make Hong Kong a clean, comfortable and pleasant home, and also to maintain our competitive advantage and our position as a world class city. In Hong Kong, it means:

finding ways to increase prosperity and improve the quality of life while reducing overall pollution and waste; meeting our own needs and aspirations without doing damage to the prospects of future generations; and Reducing the environmental burden we put on our neighbors and helping to preserve common resources. ("1999 Policy Address").

http://www.gov.hk/en/residents/environment/sustainable/dev.htm Therefore, in the course of this report we will examine the indicators of sustainable urban development: environmental, social and economic. Under environmental issues we will discuss fuel and land consumption, the rate of pollution emission as well as modes of transport: car ownership, rail system and pedestrians. Under social issues we will discuss the accessibility and air and noise pollution. Finally under the economic goals we will analyze the financial limitations, affordability, efficiency, and cost of land and transportation as well as political agenda governing these issues.

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2. Economic Issues
By economic goals we understand mobility of person and goods necessary to achieve prosperous economic development. This should be achieved without creating congestions and without over-burdening the financial limitations of the public and private budgets (Fjellstrom).

According to the Hong Kong Population Projections done by the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region: 1. The Hong Kong Resident Population is projected to increase at an average annual rate of 0.6% (the same as the average annual rate in the past five years), from 7.07 million in mid-2011 to 8.47 million in mid-2041. 2. Within the Hong Kong Resident Population, the number of Usual Residents is projected to increase from 6.86 million in mid-2011 to 8.22 million in mid-2041. In addition, the number of Mobile Residents is projected to increase from 212 200 in mid-2011 to 245 000 in mid-2041.

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The evidences from the projections suggesting that the population of Hong Kong will rise to an unprecedented level imposing unmanageable strain on housing, transportation and the environment.

The expenditure on building infrastructure to support public housing will increase owing to increasing demand of housing and consequently, cost or rent and purchase of these houses will shoot up as well (basics of supply and demand. There is always a high burden on the transportation system in Hong Kong, as the mean working distance is relatively long, Hong Kong citizens rely heavily on the system to go to work, it will also cause an increase in cost of transportation as there is no space for the system to expand, so the only way at some point will be to increase the frequency of travel and intensity. Hong Kong government is being forced to consider urban renewal due to the aging infrastructure in many older districts throughout the city. The collapse of a tenement in Tokwawan exemplifies this issue to great extent. Urban rail system in Hong Kong is one of the most heavily use in the world. By 1993, 50% of the entire population of Hong Kong lived within 500m of Mass Transit Railway (Kenworthy et al., []). KCRC, with recently extended lines system provides extensive service for population living in New Territories. The effectiveness of the public transportation has been much rejoiced throughout the years but considerable space for improvement remains. In peak hours, there are large queues to access public transportation signaling lack of rail or buses to carry the exorbitant amount of passengers. However, when the peak hours has passed, there are trains and buses that run with lesser load than acceptable for efficient transport use. This is largely attributable to duplicated buses lines in Hong Kong leading to serious traffic congestion problem.

[]Kenworthy, J.R., Bater, P.A., Newman, P.W.G., Poboon, C. 1994. Resisting Automobile Dependence in Booming Economies: A case study of Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong within global samp les of cities. Paper p resented at the Asian Studies Association of Australia Biennial Conference, Murdoch Unive rsity, Perth, Western Australia, 1318 July.

Cost of land
The biggest cost of any development in Hong Kong is the land. The price of land is disproportional to cost of construction. The land is the biggest commodity in Hong Kong. Therefore it is extremely important that land consumption related to transport facilities should be reduced to minimum. The land consumption in Hong Kong is extremely low making public transport much more efficient and more economic to run. However it still looks like a lot of land designated to road structures could have been saved through more inventive designs.

Affordability
<Affordability of transportation and housing to be considered in greater depth>

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Aging Population

The ageing trend is becoming a major concern in Hong Kong. At present, one out of eight people in Hong Kong ages 65 or above. As people are living longer and getting older, the average life expectancy is 80 and 86 for men and women respectively in 2010. In 20 years time, one in every four Hong Kong residents will be 65 or above. By 2050, Hong Kong is forecasted by the World Health Organization to rank fifth in the world for cities with the largest percentage of older adults, i.e. 40% of the population in Hong Kong will be 65 or above. The rapid ageing population will lead to the continuous rise of the old age dependency ratio (i.e. the ratio of the non-working population who are 65 or over being supported by the working population age 15 to 64) from 172/1000 (172 non-working supported by 1000 working population) in 2010 to 227/1000 in 2021. This also implies a constant decline in labor force in Hong Kong and greater dependency on medical, welfare and other services will be greater.

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2. Environmental Issues
Before we begin to consider the environmental issues we must understand that to be sustainable, the rate of use of non-renewable resources should not exceed the rate at which renewable substitutes are developed; the rate of pollution emission should not exceed the assimilative capacity of the environment; the land consumption for the transport related activity should be limited to minimum (Fjellstrom, []). All of the above are closely related to modes of transport, which will also be discussed in this section.
[] Fjellstrom, K. 2002. Cho ice of Mass Rapid System. Paper presented at Workshop on Clean City Veh icles in Developing Countries. Sustainable Transport in Developing Cities. Selected initiatives of GTZ. 24-25 September 2002, IEA Paris.

Serious congestion as the load on the transportation system is strained increasing travel time, deteriorating travelling experience and ultimately decreasing GDP of Hong Kong. The government will need to support the growing population and rural- urban migration by providing more jobs. And also to support the people we need essential public amenities such as public schools, hospitals, parks, etc linked up with efficient transportation system to be effectively used. The increase of population will on one hand lead to a higher consumption of energy as a whole owing to increased numbers and on the other hand also increase per-capita energy consumption as transportation distances increase and private mode of transportation are exploited. As more and more power stations increase the use of fossil fuels to meet the demand, the situation will adversely affect the environment causing Greenhouse Gases and further worsening the standard of living. With the increasing of population in Hong Kong, power consumption is also increasing. The total electricity and gas consumption has been increasing from 26,564 to 28,147 Terajoules (appendix). It is estimated that the consumption will increase to 37,594 Terajoules in 2050. This puts considerable pressure on energy suppliers (electricity, land and water) to meet the increasing demand, which is already being fulfilled by importing nuclear electricity.

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3. Social Issues
By social goals we understand that the access to all activities necessary to participate in social life has to be granted as far as possible; air quality and noise should not exceed the health standards suggested by World Health Organization; accident risks should be minimized (Fjellstrom).

Accessibility
Accessibility comes as major factor in determining sustainability in terms of social goals. Accessibility means possibility for all inhabitants to reach their place of work, services, business and amenities, in reasonable time and at affordable level. Without any doubt car offers flexibility and independence for its owner to travel to any place at any time. However the ever increasing distances in between places, congestion, and lack of parking facilities, often makes accessibility by car not that desirable.

Cities with low accessibilities force their inhabitants to travel further to fulfil their daily needs. Consequently to be able to achieve high accessibility we require highly contained urban development, high-density housing, highly-mixed land uses, and continual intensification of development. In other words, we need a compact city. Hong Kong with a very low level of motorized mobility, scores very high on accessibility.While density allows for efficient delivery of services, particularly in highly effic ient public transport, it also contributes to problems, notably traffic congestion and roadside pollution. There are other dreaded consequences of using compactness as a tool to achieve environmental sustainability such as costly urban intensification, with property prices being driven up, inconsistency with widely held housing preferences( privacy, space and comfort). Despites the merits of compact cities, compactness also places pressure on the urban climate. The packed cityscape increase local temperature because building materials retain heat, it obstructs wind corridors and thus impedes airflow through the city and it blocks sunlight from reaching the ground. All of these problems are experienced in Hong Kong. In addition, attention has been recently drawn, to the higher risks of spreading disease in compact cities, as demonstrated by

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the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Hong Kong.[] Unsurprisingly, it seems that a compact city itself can become the cause of unsustainable urban development.
[]Thach T.Q., Wong C.M., Chan K.P., Chau Y.K., Thomas G.N., Ou C., Yang L., Peiris J.S.M., Lam T.H. and Hedley A.J., Air pollutants and health outcomes: Assessment of confounding by influenza, Atmospheric Environment. 2010,

Air quality
As noted earlier in this paper, the extreme density of urban planning form and compactness of the development means that even relatively low emission level will be compacted in a very small area. This in turn will lead to extreme cases of air pollution. The very lo w car ownership and the very low energy consumption and very low level of emission, cannot help to reduce it. Hong Kongs air emissions per hectare are by far the highest in the world and measures 321 compared with Tokyo 41 or Atlanta of 29 (Millennium Cities Database []).
[] Millennium Cities Database, 1995. UITP - Murdoch University, Australia.

The Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Carbon Intensity in Hong Kong, are considered one of the highest in the world. According to the statistic provided by the Environmental Protection Department, the current total GHG emissions are 42900 kilotons in 2009. Regarding the rapid population growth and the expanding of urban area, the total GHG emissions will therefore remain at a high level in the future. It estimates that the consumption will be increased to 118170 kilotons in 2050. Possible consequences: 1. Declining regional air quality means visibility has also decreased dramatically. In 2004, low visibility occurred 18% of the time the highest on record, according to the Hong
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Kong Observatory. The number of days in which visibility was less than eight kilometres rose to 102 in 2005 from 40 in 1997. 2. Even as early as 2000, the total negative impact to the Hong Kong Economy, including cardiorespiratory disease was in excess of HK$11.1 billion. Researc h by three universities and a think-tank estimates that the pollution is costing Hong Kong about HK$21.2 billion a year in hospital admissions and lost productivity. In addition, about 1,600 deaths a year might be avoided if air quality improves. 3. Pollution is dramatically harming not only the health of citizens of Hong Kong but also its economy, particularly relating to the ability to attract skilled foreign labour.
Causes:

The pollution has been attributed to coal- fired power stations and traffic, although a significant contribution comes from the tens of thousands of factories in China's neighbouring manufacturing heartland in the Pearl River Delta.

Noise Pollution
Another problem associated with high density development is the noise pollution. It is believed that noise pollution affects around one million people in Hong Kong (Environment Hong Kong, 2001). Most of these people are exposed to traffic noise above 70 decibels (Gilbert []). With air pollution and noise pollution being as high as that Hong Kong transport cannot be truly sustainable.
[]Gilbert, R. 2002. Electrifying Hong Kong: making transport sustainable. Paper prepared for Civic Exchange. Hong Kong, February 2002.

Housing
Housing is perhaps our biggest concern even today. There are approximately 110,000 people living in poor and squalid environment. Many live in tiny cocklofts in kitchens while a typical flat of less than 47 square metres could be home to a dozen households living in small cubicles and partitioned rooms sharing only one kitchen and one bathroom. Without windows for air ventilation and air conditioning, the daytime temperature in their accommodations in summer time could reach as high as 37 degrees centigrade or more. With the population increase and the increasing disparity among the rich and the poor, the poor will have no other option but to move into structurally poor houses or to relocate altogether.

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4. Conclusions and Recommendations

<pending assessment of draft>

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