Slum Families Squeeze Their Lives into Tiny Apartments: Hong Kong
Local Editor
With a land mass of 1,104sq km and a population of 7 million, in one of the most densely populated, families live in rooms that are barely bigger than a toilet cubicle.
These depressingly cramped spaces serve as a kitchen, living room, dining room, bedroom, pantry and everything in between for their cooped-up inhabitants.
Those unfortunate enough to live in these urban slums range from the elderly and unemployed to low-income families and singletons.
Their location? Hong Kong. One of the richest cities in the world.
These bird's-eye images have been taken by the Hong Kong-based Society for Community Organization (SoCO) in a bid to document the plight of the city's most underprivileged people.
As rent is so high - around HKD$90 (£8) per square foot a month - and the waiting list for public housing so long, many are forced to live in inconceivably small spaces to survive.
A family-four have to share a double bed which barely leaves them room to move. The walls are covered from floor to ceiling in shelves piled high with food, clothes, toiletries and all manner of daily essentials.
SoCO says the story is much the same for hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong's poorest people. These images were taken in the districts of Sham Shui Po, Yau Tsim Mong and Kowloon City, but it's a similar picture all 18 of the city's regions.
The city went through a period of unprecedented economic boom during the 1970s, but at the same time the then colonial government became riddled with rampant corruption.
Source: Mail Online
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