The Rural-Urban Migration in Hong Kong and Its New Territories

Abstract

Population migration from rural areas to urban districts is no new phenomenon peculiar t the twentieth century. Indeed, thr ughout histo ic imes ther is ample evidence in all civilized countries of such movements. In its 120 years as a British dependency Hong Kong has been particularly concerned with such population surges and fluctuations. Until its occupation by the Japanese during the Second World War an intimate free-population ebb and flow between Hong Kong and South China de? cided the pattern of movement which was essentially transient in character. Periods of prosperity and depression in China decided the direction of flow. The Chinese civil war that brought to power the Peoples' Government in 1949 also changed this pattern. The transient flow with a minimum of frontier control finished. To the magnet of a higher standard of living in Hong Kong was now added the attraction of political free? dom. The way of life in the communes and on the collective farms has become an anathema to the ordinary Chinese. For centuries he has become used to working for himself. He has become conditioned by extreme economic stresses and population pressures. As a farmer he has been forced to engage in intensive cultivation. The small-scale agricultural landscape all over China is evidence of this energy developed through hand labour. In Hong Kong he contrasts the free arrangements of private tenancies and ownership with the public labour in the communes of China. The attempt to loose family ties and clan relations is also unpopular. Thus those that are now in Hong Kong do not leave, while those outside are making desperate efforts to get in. There is a problem of refugees and people. Once againx entry to Hong Kong, legal or illegal, has brought about the complications of refugee status and definitions. Still more important has become the urgent need to support and contain the violent pressure of population. There are vast urgent social problems caused by the pressure of population. Overcrowding in the urban dis? tricts is acceptable as commonplace and inevitable. Densities of 2000 people to the acre are common and even 3000 not unusual in the Saiyingpoon, Central and Wanchai districts. In 1954 Dr. Hambro, in his report to the United Nations, conservatively estimated there were 700,000 refugees,2 mainly in the urban districts. This number is now well over one million and still increasing. And all this in a small total land area of 398 square miles. At the end of 1947 the estimated population of Hong Kong was 1,800,000. The full census of 1961 showed it to be 3,128,000. Thus the population density for the whole colony is about 8000 to the square mile, the highest in the world. The natural annual increase of population is now about 120,000. By far the largest number of people (about 80 per cent) lives around the coastal fringes of the harbour, where the abundance of human beings strikes the visitor forcibly. Heavy immigration has superimposed new features on the physical basis of Hong Kong. The refugee problem has finally been accepted as having only one solution, namely, integration. Apart from returning to China it seems impossible for any large numbers to pass on to other neighbouring countries. Political and economic difficulties are too great at present. While the refugees have created larger problems of housing, education, hospitals and employment, they have also assisted in the change-over to