Evaluating Public Housing: How good are they?

An analysis of the livability of the estates across Hong Kong

May 18, 2024

Why evaluate public housing?

Being one of the most populated and advanced cities in Asia, Hong Kong has about 7.3 million people living in different types of apartments and flats. Among the wide variety of housing, public housing estates, which are built by the government, are one of the most numerous and common in Hong Kong.

According to government reports, as of 2022, about 2.16 million people, or 30% of the population lived in public housing estates.^[1]

Due to the large number of residents living in public housing, the demand for social facilities, such as a well-paying job, and convenient healthcare services is very high. However, some residents, especially those in newer estates, have complained about the apparent shortage of these essential facilities, leading to a less-than-satisfactory quality of living. To investigate these claims, we decide to make an objective assessment of public housing estates using spatial data from the CSDI Portal.

Where are the public housing?

We took the approach of using Tertiary Planning Large Subunit Groups to identify "public housing precincts" and use the 2021 Population Census data in terms of these groups. This allows us to separately analyse the data of public housing estates only and compare them with other affluent areas.

A subunit group is labelled a "public housing precinct" and coloured red if there is at least one public housing unit in it.

This is the map of all the subunit groups that are "public housing precincts" in Hong Kong, with the locations of Housing Authority estates taken from data.gov.hk. Housing Society estates are covered in the precincts map but not in the dots, but the difference is negligible for the purposes of this analysis.

From the map, we can see that public estates are distributed across the entire Special Administrative Region, but a majority of them are located in Kowloon and new towns in the New Territories.

In the New Territories, there are public housing estates in every new town, but they are most numerous in Tin Shui Wai, Tuen Mun, Kwai Chung, and Sha Tin.

In Kowloon, they are mainly located in the districts of Kwun Tong, Wong Tai Sin and Sham Shui Po.

On Hong Kong Island, the only areas with more than one public housing estate are Chai Wan, Sai Wan Ho and Aberdeen.

Where are we sampling?

To analyze the state of public housing in greater detail, we have chosen a single district in Hong Kong, Kwun Tong, as a target of investigation. As its diversity of public housing estates can effectively represent other estates in Hong Kong, a study of Kwun Tong provides valuable insights into Hong Kong's overall public housing landscape.

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Kwun Tong Town Centre

Near Kwun Tong Town Centre, Wo Lok Estate and Tsui Ping Estate provide an example of the very old public housing estates of the urban core, representing the situation of other urban public housing districts such as Sham Shui Po, Hung Hom and To Kwa Wan. They are situated near MTR stations and old urban areas of mixed land use.

Lam Tin

Lam Tin is an area planned in the 1960s by authorities seeking to build large numbers of resettlement blocks, that are later demolished and redeveloped in the 1990s to give way to the modern housing blocks of today. The area has a very similar history and characteristic with Tsz Wan Shan, Kwai Chung and Sai Wan Ho, in that they are all on hillsides, far from commercial areas.

Anderson Road

Anderson Road, with the On Tai and On Tat Estates, is a newly developed public housing complex in the 2010s, with the newest infrastruture and the furthest distance from Kwun Tong Town Centre. It, in many ways, is the same as other government projects of the same era, like Queen's Hill Estate, Fu Tip Estate and Chun Yeung Estate.

What issues do residents face?

A) Education

We use the "2021 Population Census Statistics (By Large Subunit Group)" dataset from the CSDI Portal to analyze the educational level of the residents of the subunit groups of Hong Kong. In the following three figures, we combined the percentage of residents who received a maximum of primary education ("primary-educated residents") with that of residents who received post-secondary education ("college-educated residents"). The precincts of Hong Kong are then classfied into one of three categories:

The precincts that have more than 20% of primary-educated residents and less than 40% of college-educated residents are coloured the darkest on the map.
The precincts that meet only one of the conditions above are coloured paler.
The precincts that meet none of the conditions are coloured the palest on the map.

Sau Mau Ping and Ngau Tau Kok districts

In Kwun Tong, it is very clear that the public housing regions are mainly darker in colour, underscoring a general low level of education of public housing residents. A lack of tertiary education will narrow the suitable job opportunities for them, and thus hamper their potential income.

B) Income

Using the same dataset as the previous educational analysis, the following figures show how low is the median household income (MHI) of a precinct compared to Hong Kong's MHI of $30000^[2]. The darker the colour, the lower the MHI, while precincts with a pale yellow colour have an MHI higher than the Hong Kong average.

From the map, we can observe that residents living in public housing estates get relatively low monthly salaries, in comparison with richer districts such as Tseung Kwan O.

Both of these difficulties demonstrate that residents of public housing estates are, by all measures, the most under-privileged group living in the metropolis of Hong Kong. Compared to any another social group, they need jobs, social facilities and communal help the most, and it is the society's responsibility to provide for struggling people.

But, how good is the state of affairs in public housing estates right now?

How do we assess them?

How well do the residents in public housing estates live? Are there any inadequacies? To decide how well-planned are these estates, we will evaluate them on five aspects:

The availability of jobs in the district
The number of dining locations and markets nearby
The proximity to medical services
The educational opportunies within close range
The recreation facilities within close range

These five factors are selected because they are necessary for a acceptable quality of life for a citizen, covering all basic social needs such as a stable income, food, health, education and recreation. Other factors such as the environmental quality are not included because they are not fundamental social needs to attain a decent living standard, and thus fall out of the scope of the investigation.

How close are the jobs?

The Major commercial areas of Hong Kong

In the above figure, we collect the locations of trust and company service providers (such as accounting firms) using the "List of Trust or Company Service Provider Licensees" dataset from the CSDI Portal and compile them with a heat map. The yellow regions indicate a high concentration of companies in those areas, highlighting the frequent commercial activities in these regions. We could easily observe that the majority of commercial activities happened away from public housing regions.

The major industrial areas of Hong Kong

According to this map, compiled from the "2020 Area Assessments of Industrial Land in the Territory" dataset from the CSDI Portal, it is clear that industrial activities are dispersed in Hong Kong, and are of closer distance to public housing areas than commercial areas.

Central, the central business district of Hong Kong, is far from all public housing.

So, where do the residents work?

From the map, we can see that there are plenty of both commercial service companies and industrial buildings in the Kwun Tong Town Centre area, providing an abundance of both white-collar and blue-collar jobs for residents in public housing estates. Thus, the residents living in Sau Mau Ping can get to their workplaces in Kwun Tong very easily due to the close distance relative to other commercial areas in Hong Kong.

For accurate measurement of the actual distance from the estates to potential workplaces, large subunit groups with at least 10 companies are identified as "commercial precincts" on the map. We then calculated the straight-line distance from estates to its nearest commercial precinct. Deeper dots indicate a further distance from workplaces.

Thus, it is clear that the apparent proximity from work has only benefitted those living closest to the commercial and industrial hubs, with residents in districts such as Anderson Road, Lam Tin and Yau Tong still having to travel far distances to go to work.

As a consequence, in this map, complied from the "2021 Population Census Statistics (By Large Tertiary Planning Unit Group)" dataset from CSDI Portal and showing the main workplace of the residents in a Tertiary Planning Unit, the residents in public housing estates in Kwun Tong Town Centre and Sau Mau Ping can work in their home district, while those in Lam Tin and Yau Tong are forced to commute towards Hong Kong Island for work.

How close are the food?

Public markets are a vital source of inexpensive fresh groceries for Hong Kong residents, often the only affordable one for some of the poorer public housing residents.

A large majority of markets in Hong Kong are located at the old urban areas of Kowloon, Tsuen Wan and Hong Kong Island, with a very high physical density of markets, while there are only a few markets in new towns, serving large swaths of residential areas.

Public markets should be highly accessible to residents they serve, preferably within a comfortable walking distance of 15 minutes from the homes of residents. Thus, we calclulated the area in which residents can reach public markets within 15 walking minutes,labelled using a green shade, as an index for easy market access.

In Kwun Tong, we find out that most of the public estates, including the entirety of Lam Tin, are not covered. As public markets have a much larger variety of products than private-run markets, these residents may not obtain affordable food and ingredients readily.

Who doesn't like to enjoy an occasional good meal at a decent restaurant? An integral part of Hong Kong life is eateries, so we investigate the distribution of restaurants around public housing estates, using the "Restaurant Licences" dataset from the CSDI Portal. The points are then aggregated into bins to show the density of restaurants in a fixed area, to compare the choice of restaurants in different areas of the city.

This map shows the density of restaurants in Hong Kong. There is a very high density of restaurants near the core areas of Mong Kok, Tsim Sha Tsui, Central and Causeway Bay, while other areas have most of their restaurants concentrated in shopping malls, with the rest of the city lacking enough dining options.

We can easily observe that there are not many restaurants inside the public housing estates in Sau Mau Ping, Lam Tin and Jordan Valley. Most of the restaurants in Kwun Tong are concentrated in the Town Centre area, far from public housing. It shows that the residents could only enjoy a limited range of choices in food near their homes, and have to travel, potentially, far distances to get to decent restaurants.

How close are the clinics?

If you are sick, you definitely don't want to walk too far, or even ride a bus just to get to the doctor. So, being covered by an inexpensive government clinic or hospital is crucial for the health of public housing residents.

Ideally, the purple medical facilities, a combination of the "Clinics / Health Centres under the Department of Health", "Hospital Authority Specialist Outpatient Clinic List" and "Hospital Authority General Outpatient Clinic List" datasets from the CSDI Portal, should be reachable within 15 minutes of walking, a range indicated by the light purple polygons.

A significant portion of the public housing estates in Sau Mau Ping falls within this area, highlighting the satisfactory accessibility of medical resources near these residential areas. However, the area of tens of thousands of residents is served by only one hospital and clinic, meaning that the availability of appointments may not be sufficient if demand is high during the influenza seasons.

On top of that, some areas in Kwun Tong lack healthcare coverage completely, as the government offers no clinics or any other medical facility in Yau Tong. The Anderson Road area, as shown in the map above, also shares the same problems.

How close are the schools?

The white circles represent the aided secondary schools of Hong Kong, taken from the "Aided Secondary Schools" dataset from the CSDI Portal. As the vast majority of students that live in public housing attend aided secondary schools, we decided that only data of aided secondary schools will be relevant to our analysis.

Aided secondary schools are distributed in a very proportional fashion with the population, and they are densest at Kowloon Tong and Ho Man Tin, traditional school districts.

First, we tally the schools within a 15-minute walking distance of every public housing estate. An average of 5 secondary schools is calculated. Subsequently, we use an upward arrow to indicate public housing estates with secondary schools exceeding the average number, while a downward arrow signifies those below the average. A larger arrow denotes a greater deviation from the average.

We could observe that most of the secondary schools are near Kwun Tong Centre, leading to a lack of education resources for the uphill regions far away from Kwun Tong, including the Anderson Road area, Jordan Valley, Tak Tin Estate and Kwong Tin Estate.

The white triangles represent aided primary schools in Hong Kong, taken from the "Aided Primary Schools" dataset from the CSDI Portal. Only aided primary schools are included in our study, with the same reason as aided secondary schools.

The methodology is the same as the above analysis for secondary schools.

The graph shows that primary schools are distributed evenly around Sau Mau Ping and Ngau Tau Kok, and most public housing estates in these two areas have access to sufficient primary school resources.

However, in the older area of Shun Lee, and the newest estates of On Tai and On Tat, there are not enough primary schools to satisfy the high demands of the five estates.

How close are the parks?

Physical and mental wellbeing can only be achieved with proper amounts of rest in open areas and green space. So, as the final item of assessment, we merge the "Parks, Zoos and Gardens" and "Recreation Grounds" datasets from the CSDI portal to evaluate the amount of recreational facilities around public housing estates, to determine whether residents can enjoy enough free space to rest and play.

We summarized the recreation grounds within a 15-minute walking distance of each public housing estate. The darker colors on the map indicate a high number of recreational grounds.

The area around Ngau Tau Kok and Kwun Tong Town Centre, old urban areas, surprisingly have more open areas than the area uphill, like Sau Mau Ping. This may be because the park have to serve the densely populated mixed-land-use urban areas as well.

However, it is evident that public housing estates like On Tat and Po Tat lack sufficient recreation grounds, underscoring inadequate recreational facilities that may impact the livability of these communities.

After all this, we have one final question to answer:

How can they be better?

A few words to conclude

Living in public housing is a huge blessing. Despite the hardships we may face, our sense of community is stronger than anywhere else in Hong Kong, and this is what makes improving our estates so pressing and important for us — because we want everyone in our dear community to thrive. We hope that through our solution can public housing in the future be redefined not as an area of social problems, but as a convenient, comfortable and commodious place to live in. And only by lifting the livability of public housing will Hong Kong be a truly prosperous city for all.

— by proud residents of public housing estates