The Pulse：Developing country parks and selling of public housing, discussion with Richard Wong of

The Shek Kip Mei squatter village fire on Christmas night in 1953 not only destroyed the homes of more than 58,000 people it encouraged the then Governor Murray Maclehose and the colonial government to respond with a public housing programme that dazzled the world with its speed and efficiency. Since the Handover though, the SAR government has stopped building more public housing. There have even been suggestions that it sell even what it has, and there are those repeated murmurings that it’s time to eat into the country parks. With us in the studio are Richard Wong, who is a consultant for the Our Hong Kong Foundation, and Paul Zimmerman, Founder and CEO of Designing Hong Kong. As Mr Zimmerman is running in this Sunday’s District Council Elections, we did ask the other candidate in the constituency, Jeremy Young, if he wanted to join the discussion, but he declined.
What’s an allegedly post-colonial administration to do? The government says it wants more tourists, but tourists tend to visit places because they have a unique identity. On the other hand, the more Hong Kong maintains its unique identity, its collective memories and its reverence for its own history, the less quickly – far too slowly for some - it seems to be assimilating into the mainland. Now even the humble Hong Kong post box is set to become a casualty in the battle for hearts and minds ... and the SAR’s identity.