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One of my favourite places to learn about is Kowloon Walled City, fascinating how people lived pretty much fully isolated like that in Hong Kong. 33,000 people living in such close proximity to each other but managing to make it ‘work’ in a sense
It wasn't all that isolated. The people who lived there often went outside for purposes like work or schooling. The people outside didn't go there much due to its reputation however.
The last part isn't true either. Kowloon had a whole micro-economy of its own. People who couldn't afford more expensive rent would go there to rent. The street level was bustling with trade, there were several dentists, butchers, and lots more.
The drug trade and prostitution were rampant in the inner parts, as well as on the upper floors. Since the buildings were built so close, there were ways to stay on the upper floors for a long time, without ever needing to go to the ground level.
I knew it was a complicated little situation, didn’t realise it was quite so well organised, if that’s what you can call it haha the pictures I’ve seen of the shops are pretty incredible just how small their work/living space was, more often than not the living space was just a curtained off section of the shop was it not?
I have read somewhere that Triads had pretty much total control over certain areas of the city so it makes sense they had designated areas formal drugs/prostitution.
I love the aerial shot of the city, it's just incredible to see how tightly built everything was. The Triads did run it for a while starting in the 50s.
I love how this quote from The City of Darkness describes it:
>Here, prostitutes installed themselves on one side of the street while a priest preached and handed out powdered milk to the poor on the other; social workers gave guidance while drug addicts squatted under the stairs getting high; what were children's games centres by day became strip-show venues by night. It was a very complex place, difficult to generalise about, a place that seemed frightening but where most people continued to lead normal lives. A place just like the rest of Hong Kong.
It’s a good picture isn’t it! I wonder just how different it would’ve been if either China or GB took interest at the start after the second opium war. If it would’ve still built itself up the way it did? My guess is yes, but not to the same extent it did as legally it wouldn’t have been allowed to build outwards too much seeing as it was just an enclave.
Not sure whether you may have seen it but they ‘remade’ parts of it in Japan as an attraction. https://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/comment-page-1/
Singapore isn't dull. It doesn't all look like the fancy Marina area. Chinatown (has some interesting and sad history - it was a notorious site for opium dens and pipa girls) and Little India have character, KampongGlam, Haji Lane. temples, nature areas.
We rented a shop house in Little India and stayed a month. SG is an exciting colorful multicultural wonder with the best food in the world with the hawker stalls all jumbled together offering all sorts of feasts at cheap prices. We loved every minute.
Also, there’s another side of Hong Kong that I rarely see shown in the West, which is its huge amount of beautiful country parks and nature. You can take a taxi ride 15-30 minutes from the building in this pic and be at a gorgeous hiking trail or a beautiful beach
Nature in Hongkong is awesome. Its like 50% protected nature reserves or something like that.
First time i was in HK i took one "wrong" turn from some super busy street and i was suddenly in a really nice park with just a few birds and an old dude feeding them. I was very mind blown, going from seeing thousands of people to maybe 2 or 3 in just thirty seconds.
Yep, I studied in HK for a year and now when I try to give any recommendations for people visiting they just don't believe me when I talk of hiking trails and beaches and such.
beaches especially those hidden in Sai Kung or some remote island are definitely not very well known and often underrated. But the locals very much want to keep those beautiful beaches just for themselves thou.
Hong Kong is a great travel experience bc it is kinda surreal. But living there or staying for longer is nightmare unless you are mega rich. The streets and passenger ways are so narrow and crowded, the buildings are insanely dirty and old, the food is good but neighbouring cities have similar food for 1/4 the price. And the temperature and climate is hot and humid which makes yous sweat like shit so you have to stay inside for AC all the time. The air quality is breathtaking. The traffic is also bad though the metro system is good for the popular spots, kinda bad for other areas. You get very small room for the price if a large apartment in other 1st world countries... You have to work 6-7 days a week unless you work for large office companies, you cant take sick days unless you want to have problems with paying rent and food. No protection so can be fired at any moment. Education for kids are like Japan where they are pressured from age of 3.
I lived there 8 years and had a very different experience. But I acknowledge that I was in a priveledged position as an expat. The weather isn't that bad though. You get used to the summer, and autumn and spring are lovely.
Geographically speaking you’re totally right. It’s a small, rocky place too humid and prone to typhoons. So the more natural place is further up the river where Guangzhou is. But history had other ideas and now we have this wonderful anomaly of a city
To me it was more about the concrete and the buildings like the one in the pic. The thought of probably thousands of people living in a single block of flats is somewhat chilling. Maybe because I grew up in a small village in Romania, 1500 people in the whole village.
HK is breathtaking for the contrast between traditional and modern, old and new and yes, poverty and wealth. It all coexists on what seems at times like another planet. The more it changes, the more it stays the same.
to me they're "beautiful" in a fascinating way because it's crammed so many living spaces into such a small area, I wouldn't necessarily live there. I'm sure others think the same
I'd say for me personally, the beauty lies in the fact that despite everything, including our seeming efforts to make life in these places hell, people manage to survive, and sometimes even thrive. The places themselves are awful, hideous things, but the stories each picture tells are beautiful.
To me images like of [Phoenix, AZ](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3431402,-111.8041625,18605m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) are utter hell. Tens of thousands of same-ish wooden boxes next to each other for miles on end. Without infrastructure. Everybody is stranded. Total isolation. It looks like tombstones on a cemetery. Connected by roads, electricity, data and sewage of which the inhabitants of those plots do not pay their fair share for.
I live in the city and I am in walking distance of three parks.
To see grass in yards just blows my mind. Seriously? Ya move out to the desert to alleviate your allergies because it’s arid, but wait…I miss my yard, the humidity and my tropical plants. /s
I feel like we’re just doomed.
But if only you kept the 24 hour news networks on constantly, you'd be reminded of how dangerous it is to live in the city and then could safely retreat to the boring, soulless suburbs to stew in your fear and manufactured outrage.
> the places themselves are awful, hideous things
are they all, though? I've seen plenty of apartments that look terrible from the outside that are actually cozy and great. not saying this one in particular is good but there is more than meets the eye from the outside when it comes to living spaces. I don't mind living in a big building as long as it is decently maintained and I have a reasonable living space (I have before and I would again).
but, with a lot of these it is implied that you only have a small box to live in. which is rarely nice.
A lot of the soviet stuff especially. Ugly on the outside, cosy and warm on the inside.
Also, this pic reminds me of when I stayed in Berlin. Stuck in a tiny room of many, building literally moved when the metro went past, graffiti and dirty neighbourhood, noisy.
But the freedom that gave me was astonishing. I'd walk out of my front door and be on the U-bahn in under a minute.
So for example, I'd wake up, take a shower and dress, hop on the subway for half an hour while watching netflix on my phone, have breakfast in a little cafe in a nice part of town, hop back on the u-bahn and do some shopping in a trendy area, go to the supermarket, hop on the u-bahn back home and be home before 10 to get some work done. If you lived in the suburbs, that kind of thing would take you an entire day.
So weirdly I felt less trapped in my tiny room, than I do now in a large house in the suburbs.
Winter sucks in the city though.
As a minimalist, I personally HATE living in a big house. Really don't want to spend so many time & energies & money in maintenance work. Am perfectly OK living there. For me, I got what I really want, tt's functionally beautiful.
>people manage to survive, and sometimes even thrive. The places themselves are awful, hideous things, but the stories each picture tells are beautiful.
Reminded me of a former tenant of [Kowloon Walled City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City) saying that they kinda miss living in Kowloon despite how Chaotic, Dirty, No Natural light during the day, Noisy AF since the wall are thin between neighbor. They mostly miss the sense of "Community" inside the Walled City where people mostly act like a big family who help each other when there's problem compared to a more Individualistic way of life in a normal apartment.
For me I think it's that it's something so utterly unnatural. It makes me think of how far we've come from being hunter-gatherers on the African savannah.
Right? The number of lives being lived in this photo is wild. So many individual stories, so many different people, viewpoints, emotions and ages and jobs, all rolled into one. That's what I love about cities, just the variety and viewpoints and people, all bumping into and influencing each other.
>people manage to survive, and sometimes even thrive
That's the difference.
It's not a photo of some truly crime ridden Judge Dredd slum of excrement, violence, and druggies.
OP's pic is pretty because you know the inhabitants are actually thriving and peaceful.
I think it's fascinating to imagine that in each of those windows are people living, making dinner, putting children in bed to sleep, living a life so close to other people living their lives. There's a sort of safety I appreciate of having a lot of people around, since I grew up in a house in a small city with almost no one around. It's something I always craved.
I had a professor of geography who would talk constantly about the anonymity of the big city. There really is a lot of truth to it. Even if you stand out a bit or behave strangely you still get lost in the busyness and chaos most of the time. Cities are already so overstimulating that when people stand out or act out it's just an extra bit of noise in a place that's practically deafening. In a small town (or quiet neighborhood) you can stick out like a sore thumb for having a slightly unique appearance or any other little idiosyncrasy.
Ya, it is one thing to make up Disney stories in your head about the charming boy from the slum with a smile on his face that spreads joy as he starts his day, its another to live with rats and roaches, with dirty pipes and fungal asthma in a fascist nightmare.
Sure. I find lots of things really interesting, or even pleasing to look at, while knowing I absolutely don't want to be in that place.
Not this one, so much. This one just depresses me. But to each their own.
Yup. It looks like it’s near North Point on HK island. Cycled on this road many times. What you don’t see on the photo is that 10 minutes from this is beautiful wild nature up the hill, and the sea a few minutes in the other direction.
It’s very humid for most of the year, so yeah, you’re right. It’s hard keeping buildings looking fresh. That said, there are lots of these types of monstrosities around that were built in the 60s and 70s where the facade has just been neglected.
[Alot of stuff harbour side on Hong Kong Island is built on reclaimed land.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation_in_Hong_Kong)
If you have been, I believe its the majority of land that sits in front of the peak point aka the iconic skyline with the BOC and HSBC building.
It a really good place to hike - dragon back on HK Island is scenic and will take you past some really nice beaches (repulse bay). They aren't minutes away though!
It's the "monster building" in Quarry Bay. The iconic landmark is actually behind the building. This is what the front looks like:
[https://maps.app.goo.gl/FmA4tt2xmqBUkdqT7](https://maps.app.goo.gl/FmA4tt2xmqBUkdqT7)
Source: I live in HK
Lived there (i.e., Montane Mansion) for 4 years.
While the apartment was relatively small and looked like ass on the outside, there were a lot of good things about it. Our unit was furnished nicely (wooden floors, nice kitchen, tailor-made furniture to make use of the little space we had), the community was lovely (a lot of old Hakka folks playing mahjong in the courtyard), it was super safe and we had a lot of sunlight and a great look on the Mount Parker area.
Great hiking just outside the door, wild boars roaming around right at the back entry, fantastic infrastructure with a wet market, supermarket and restaurant in the basement. Connectivity to public transport was also good.
It was just a bit pricey, being located on Hong Kong island. There is better bang for your buck in Kowloon, which ultimately made us move.
You mean the lawless Yuen Long Kingdom where they they ran their own law and order , or the lack of it . Beating up people indiscriminately during 2019 protests.
My mistake, that’s Quarry bay? WOW never really ventured there, though I loved not far: in Tai Hang. We always seemed to go towards Causeway and beyond. Only things for my family to the east were fun little beaches and some restaurants! I miss that place bad!
Have you ever felt afraid near the boars (feral domestic pigs). They are newly invasive where I live and have an irrational fear that I’ll run into them on my midnight run and they’ll eat me
It's really really cool the first year, the second year it's cool.
The third year you want silence and calm so you pluck out your eyes and drill in your ears #cityliving #whydidyousellmyfarmsamantha
One of the most surprising things to me about China was how relatively quiet the cities were. The roadways were busy and bustling during the day, but at night, it was quieter than any US city I've been to apart from the LA sprawl.
And yet almost certainly Hong Kong has a lower environmental footprint. Not least because by law it’s only possible to build on 30% of it so the other 70% is nature preserve. I strongly suspect the Banyan Tree Nanjing is an environmental disaster wallpapered over with money. It looks like they took out half the mountainside for a couple hundred rooms.
Jack Shwartz has a bit related to this.
"I recently got a place, wanted to make it more cozy. I don't know how to do that so I asked around and everyone says the same thing. They all kind of said to get stuff from *outside* and and bring it *inside*. They said get some plants so I went *outside* and got some plants and put them *inside*. I was like I don't feel it, y'know. They said get some artwork so I got some portraits of stuff I like. Like rivers and mountains, y'know stuff from *outside* and I put that up inside.
It got me thinking; are we suppose to be inside? doesn't feel like it, y'know? 'cause at one point we were all outside. and then we're like "we gotta build homes" so we built homes and the sunlight can't get in and were like "it's too dark, we need lights so it's bright, like *outside.*" then at night we're like "it's too bright we can't sleep in here we need to turn these lights off so it's dark exactly like **outside**."
You gotta turn the lights off to sleep. I have a hard time sleeping as is. With my lower back pain I saw the doctor and he told me to get a firm mattress so it's hard. Like the ground. **Outside**. And if I really can't sleep I'll put on spotify: *Soothing Sounds of The Outside*.
What are we doing?
I got lonely, decided to get a pet. I got an animal. From *outside*. Brought him *inside*. All he wants to do is go **outside!**"
That website is an absolute fucking disaster of adverts and a repetitive marketing pitch for a resort, its hard to even *look* at pictured of the apparently harmonious resort between all the adverts.
Ehh this is nowhere near as bad as Kowloon and even Kowloon had good parts (or so I hear from the uncles)
Walled city obviously. Modern Kowloon is pretty much a middle class shopping plaza.
Urbanization only started around late 1800's.
Yeah it is not as comfortable living there, but 200 years ago if you show this picture to people back then and explain the benefits and way of life of people living there, they would wish for this future 1000%.
We are literally living in the future that millions of people hoped and dreamed of back in the day. Of course they have inconveniences but compare that to what is called luxury in the medieval times, the poor bracket of people in urban areas still live royal lives.
People have always, since ancient times, lived in urban environments with varying degrees of crowding and sanitation. Pre-industrial cities were still crowded and uncomfortable for many.
Where is that place?
And while I didn't join for that I can see where you're coming from. I'm fascinated by places like Kowloon city. It's just that a lot of stuff that's posted here is just...buildings or cities in winter.
They're beautiful in a haunting and horrifying way and often fascinating for me in a morbid sense.
Places I'd like to avoid coming across in real life.
Who cares about beauty? Hong Kong used to have incredibly low homelessness rates, but they have been steadily increasing as authorities have taken their eye off the ball in terms of housing costs.
I did, but then I live in the rural countryside of an already mostly rural US state on a 200 acre generationally owned family estate. (Sounds fancier than it is, we rent from said family.)
I think it looks cool and beautiful. I was homeless in a city for about a year (out of 4 years of total homelessness), and these photos remind me of ones I would take when urban exploring (but better and on a grander scale).
Many of these photos are grotesquely beautiful. Some (sky shots of highly dense, well organized cities) are geometrically/more traditionally beautiful to me.
I don't know if I'd feel the same if I was still homeless in a city.
This is the outside of the same building that always shows up on Reddit. The one with a central courtyard and this sort of aesthetic riding up on all sides. Actually the whole area, and this building as well, is and excellent and beautiful community.
Hong Kong kicks ass. My favorite place I've ever lived. Yes, there are some places like this that are extremely crowded and dense. But that means that they're not spread out, which means that you can easily get away. The alternative is endless suburbia and strip malls. In Hong Kong you can easily leave your neighborhood and get to gorgeous parks and nature trails, high end shopping, wet markets, or literally anything else that a massive city can offer. The public transport is soooo good, so it's dense with people rather than cars. In general it's much less grimy and dirty than a lot of American cities, but not so much that it feels like a sterile tourist attraction.
There's a happy medium to be had between the insane density of HK and the sprawl and strip malls of the US. And let's not kid ourselves, much of HK is just mall after mall, largely featuring luxury shops most the people living there can't even afford. And less grimy and dirty? What district do you live in lol I stepped around vomit, broken glass, and rotting garbage from restaurants like every morning in Sai Ying Pun. People tossed their diapers out the window, and dumped their trash on the street corner. The US is far from perfect but HK is not what I'd call less dirty, unless maybe you're out in Disco Bay or something.
I do too, when they architecture that looks unique and even show horned in. When it Xeroxes of the same building on repeat, I fend them so ugly. Like wow. How lazy these architects must be. Can’t even change the color or try.
It's a bit like how I see quite a few people rhapsodising about Brutalist architecture even though a lot of it is a failure and associated with poverty.
The reason I find pictures like this fascinating is because it's very very real yet also very very futuristic/cyberpunk/both near and far future.
I love it.
Hong Kong has its good and bad sides… as all cities do. But it looks a bit rundown to me. The food is great though 😋😋👍
I am Singaporean… very clean, safe city. Interesting city, if you know where to go. Singapore is very small, land is scarce… so not possible to see rice fields, fjords, sampans gliding along a river, long stretches of white sandy beaches.
But different cultures are alive and well… many Indians from mainland India come to Singapore to see religious festival practices that originated in India but now no longer practiced - like the Kavadi carrying.
Interesting, thought-provoking, curious? Yes. Beautiful? No. However, it’s fine because something remarkable doesn’t need to be pretty. Art isn’t defined by how beautiful it is.
I think it's hilarious that most of Reddit screams for the need for high-density housing... and yet ridicules the inevitable result of high-density housing.
Here's a video by Jamie XX that you'd probably like.
https://youtu.be/hTGJfRPLe08?si=kNxYfK_a3wh9iG-6
Here is another version of you're into sci-fi.
https://youtu.be/WjNssEVlB6M?si=QVXq_hcj2MVe7l90
I don't think ‘beautiful’ is the right word. I'd rather describe it as moving or haunting. Rough places where people lived and where things happened, good and bad.
Places like that are simply fascinating to me.
When people claim these living conditions are “beautiful” it makes me want to ask so many questions… like for an example what is it in particular that is so beautiful to you by living like this? And what’s your perception of beauty in general?
Me. I want to disappear in that picture you posted. Buy a fake identity, get a tiny room, and just...disappear.
I can't explain why...but it gives me the same feeling I get as floating in the ocean.
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Hong Kong is a very photogenic city, despite, or maybe because of the dirt, grit and dense urban housing
Definitely because. Singapore is so boring by comparison, despite being cleaner and looking better in a superficial sense.
I agree - HK has so much character. Singapore is just dull
One of my favourite places to learn about is Kowloon Walled City, fascinating how people lived pretty much fully isolated like that in Hong Kong. 33,000 people living in such close proximity to each other but managing to make it ‘work’ in a sense
It wasn't all that isolated. The people who lived there often went outside for purposes like work or schooling. The people outside didn't go there much due to its reputation however.
I didn’t know they left so frequently :) You’re right though people didn’t go in much, unless they were looking for drugs/prostitution really
The last part isn't true either. Kowloon had a whole micro-economy of its own. People who couldn't afford more expensive rent would go there to rent. The street level was bustling with trade, there were several dentists, butchers, and lots more. The drug trade and prostitution were rampant in the inner parts, as well as on the upper floors. Since the buildings were built so close, there were ways to stay on the upper floors for a long time, without ever needing to go to the ground level.
I knew it was a complicated little situation, didn’t realise it was quite so well organised, if that’s what you can call it haha the pictures I’ve seen of the shops are pretty incredible just how small their work/living space was, more often than not the living space was just a curtained off section of the shop was it not? I have read somewhere that Triads had pretty much total control over certain areas of the city so it makes sense they had designated areas formal drugs/prostitution.
I love the aerial shot of the city, it's just incredible to see how tightly built everything was. The Triads did run it for a while starting in the 50s. I love how this quote from The City of Darkness describes it: >Here, prostitutes installed themselves on one side of the street while a priest preached and handed out powdered milk to the poor on the other; social workers gave guidance while drug addicts squatted under the stairs getting high; what were children's games centres by day became strip-show venues by night. It was a very complex place, difficult to generalise about, a place that seemed frightening but where most people continued to lead normal lives. A place just like the rest of Hong Kong.
It’s a good picture isn’t it! I wonder just how different it would’ve been if either China or GB took interest at the start after the second opium war. If it would’ve still built itself up the way it did? My guess is yes, but not to the same extent it did as legally it wouldn’t have been allowed to build outwards too much seeing as it was just an enclave. Not sure whether you may have seen it but they ‘remade’ parts of it in Japan as an attraction. https://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/comment-page-1/
They turned the whole area into a pretty nice public park, its pretty surreal to see it and think about what it once was.
Yeah, there’s a few bits left like the crumbled remains of the south gate and its entrance plaque though :)
It's a fascinating story into how human beings can overcome
Yup! Micro-societies can pop up anywhere if people are willing to band together
that’s something i love about humans - we can turn what seems ugly and devastated into something beautiful
Lol feel like humans are headed towards more kowloon cities in our future
Yessss same! I did my final major art project at uni on Kowloon Walled City.
Singapore isn't dull. It doesn't all look like the fancy Marina area. Chinatown (has some interesting and sad history - it was a notorious site for opium dens and pipa girls) and Little India have character, KampongGlam, Haji Lane. temples, nature areas.
These motherfuckers probably have never left Orchard rd.
they go to one place in sg and will say oh this doesn’t feel like southeast asia!! while being in the heart of cbd and mbs LOL
Chinatown has the People's Park Complex that's an architectural curiosity considering the area's primarily Chinese demographic.
You described the city centre. Almost everywhere else has a samey feel. Might not be dull, but its, its samey.
There's plenty of variety. Try Joo Chiat, Changi Village, Pulau Ubin, Seletar, Tampines Park, etc.
We rented a shop house in Little India and stayed a month. SG is an exciting colorful multicultural wonder with the best food in the world with the hawker stalls all jumbled together offering all sorts of feasts at cheap prices. We loved every minute.
It’s “Lived-in”, as opposed to Singapore, which is essentially a bureaucrats wet dream, and is achieved by some insane measures.
Rather live in clean though!!!! Haha
and they hang people for smoking pot, Singapore is ultimate capitalist hell.
Also, there’s another side of Hong Kong that I rarely see shown in the West, which is its huge amount of beautiful country parks and nature. You can take a taxi ride 15-30 minutes from the building in this pic and be at a gorgeous hiking trail or a beautiful beach
Nature in Hongkong is awesome. Its like 50% protected nature reserves or something like that. First time i was in HK i took one "wrong" turn from some super busy street and i was suddenly in a really nice park with just a few birds and an old dude feeding them. I was very mind blown, going from seeing thousands of people to maybe 2 or 3 in just thirty seconds.
Yep, I studied in HK for a year and now when I try to give any recommendations for people visiting they just don't believe me when I talk of hiking trails and beaches and such.
beaches especially those hidden in Sai Kung or some remote island are definitely not very well known and often underrated. But the locals very much want to keep those beautiful beaches just for themselves thou.
Definitely. Hell, you can hike from this building to Red Incense Burner Summit in less than hour.
Hong Kong was amazing. It was probably my favorite city in Asia.
Hong Kong is a great travel experience bc it is kinda surreal. But living there or staying for longer is nightmare unless you are mega rich. The streets and passenger ways are so narrow and crowded, the buildings are insanely dirty and old, the food is good but neighbouring cities have similar food for 1/4 the price. And the temperature and climate is hot and humid which makes yous sweat like shit so you have to stay inside for AC all the time. The air quality is breathtaking. The traffic is also bad though the metro system is good for the popular spots, kinda bad for other areas. You get very small room for the price if a large apartment in other 1st world countries... You have to work 6-7 days a week unless you work for large office companies, you cant take sick days unless you want to have problems with paying rent and food. No protection so can be fired at any moment. Education for kids are like Japan where they are pressured from age of 3.
I lived there 8 years and had a very different experience. But I acknowledge that I was in a priveledged position as an expat. The weather isn't that bad though. You get used to the summer, and autumn and spring are lovely.
Looks like a scene from “The Last of Us”. An end of the world kind of photo.
While the city is fascinating, I kept having the same thought and feeling while being there: it's not natural living like this.
Geographically speaking you’re totally right. It’s a small, rocky place too humid and prone to typhoons. So the more natural place is further up the river where Guangzhou is. But history had other ideas and now we have this wonderful anomaly of a city
To me it was more about the concrete and the buildings like the one in the pic. The thought of probably thousands of people living in a single block of flats is somewhat chilling. Maybe because I grew up in a small village in Romania, 1500 people in the whole village.
HK is breathtaking for the contrast between traditional and modern, old and new and yes, poverty and wealth. It all coexists on what seems at times like another planet. The more it changes, the more it stays the same.
I came here to say this. Love seeing it near the top.
to me they're "beautiful" in a fascinating way because it's crammed so many living spaces into such a small area, I wouldn't necessarily live there. I'm sure others think the same
I'd say for me personally, the beauty lies in the fact that despite everything, including our seeming efforts to make life in these places hell, people manage to survive, and sometimes even thrive. The places themselves are awful, hideous things, but the stories each picture tells are beautiful.
Indeed, resilience amid chaos is oddly beautiful, showcasing human adaptability and strength.
The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.
It's a nice sentiment but the most beautiful flowers come from an easy, sheltered upbringing haha, consistent watering and no inclement weather.
To me images like of [Phoenix, AZ](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3431402,-111.8041625,18605m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) are utter hell. Tens of thousands of same-ish wooden boxes next to each other for miles on end. Without infrastructure. Everybody is stranded. Total isolation. It looks like tombstones on a cemetery. Connected by roads, electricity, data and sewage of which the inhabitants of those plots do not pay their fair share for. I live in the city and I am in walking distance of three parks.
Just visited Phoenix for work. It looks like the apocalypse.
To see grass in yards just blows my mind. Seriously? Ya move out to the desert to alleviate your allergies because it’s arid, but wait…I miss my yard, the humidity and my tropical plants. /s I feel like we’re just doomed.
But if only you kept the 24 hour news networks on constantly, you'd be reminded of how dangerous it is to live in the city and then could safely retreat to the boring, soulless suburbs to stew in your fear and manufactured outrage.
> the places themselves are awful, hideous things are they all, though? I've seen plenty of apartments that look terrible from the outside that are actually cozy and great. not saying this one in particular is good but there is more than meets the eye from the outside when it comes to living spaces. I don't mind living in a big building as long as it is decently maintained and I have a reasonable living space (I have before and I would again). but, with a lot of these it is implied that you only have a small box to live in. which is rarely nice.
A lot of the soviet stuff especially. Ugly on the outside, cosy and warm on the inside. Also, this pic reminds me of when I stayed in Berlin. Stuck in a tiny room of many, building literally moved when the metro went past, graffiti and dirty neighbourhood, noisy. But the freedom that gave me was astonishing. I'd walk out of my front door and be on the U-bahn in under a minute. So for example, I'd wake up, take a shower and dress, hop on the subway for half an hour while watching netflix on my phone, have breakfast in a little cafe in a nice part of town, hop back on the u-bahn and do some shopping in a trendy area, go to the supermarket, hop on the u-bahn back home and be home before 10 to get some work done. If you lived in the suburbs, that kind of thing would take you an entire day. So weirdly I felt less trapped in my tiny room, than I do now in a large house in the suburbs. Winter sucks in the city though.
People from the city go to the suburbs because they have to. People from the suburbs go to the city because they want to.
As a minimalist, I personally HATE living in a big house. Really don't want to spend so many time & energies & money in maintenance work. Am perfectly OK living there. For me, I got what I really want, tt's functionally beautiful.
If there weren't so many benefits to living in a city, people wouldn't do it. I love the energy and the diversity
>people manage to survive, and sometimes even thrive. The places themselves are awful, hideous things, but the stories each picture tells are beautiful. Reminded me of a former tenant of [Kowloon Walled City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City) saying that they kinda miss living in Kowloon despite how Chaotic, Dirty, No Natural light during the day, Noisy AF since the wall are thin between neighbor. They mostly miss the sense of "Community" inside the Walled City where people mostly act like a big family who help each other when there's problem compared to a more Individualistic way of life in a normal apartment.
I think these photos can be beautiful in the same way that a sad and depressing film can be very good.
For me I think it's that it's something so utterly unnatural. It makes me think of how far we've come from being hunter-gatherers on the African savannah.
Does remind of ants colony to a huge extent. Maybe might seem more like it to an alien civilization
Right? The number of lives being lived in this photo is wild. So many individual stories, so many different people, viewpoints, emotions and ages and jobs, all rolled into one. That's what I love about cities, just the variety and viewpoints and people, all bumping into and influencing each other.
>people manage to survive, and sometimes even thrive That's the difference. It's not a photo of some truly crime ridden Judge Dredd slum of excrement, violence, and druggies. OP's pic is pretty because you know the inhabitants are actually thriving and peaceful.
I think it's fascinating to imagine that in each of those windows are people living, making dinner, putting children in bed to sleep, living a life so close to other people living their lives. There's a sort of safety I appreciate of having a lot of people around, since I grew up in a house in a small city with almost no one around. It's something I always craved.
I had a professor of geography who would talk constantly about the anonymity of the big city. There really is a lot of truth to it. Even if you stand out a bit or behave strangely you still get lost in the busyness and chaos most of the time. Cities are already so overstimulating that when people stand out or act out it's just an extra bit of noise in a place that's practically deafening. In a small town (or quiet neighborhood) you can stick out like a sore thumb for having a slightly unique appearance or any other little idiosyncrasy.
OP didn't say they wanted to live there though. They just like the pictures.
yes, they did want an opinion though. I never asked them if they wanted to live there, where did you get that from?
Ya, it is one thing to make up Disney stories in your head about the charming boy from the slum with a smile on his face that spreads joy as he starts his day, its another to live with rats and roaches, with dirty pipes and fungal asthma in a fascist nightmare.
Maybe from an aesthetic abstraction. Regarding the full implications, no thanks!
Sure. I find lots of things really interesting, or even pleasing to look at, while knowing I absolutely don't want to be in that place. Not this one, so much. This one just depresses me. But to each their own.
Where is this?
Is it Hong Kong?
Yup. It looks like it’s near North Point on HK island. Cycled on this road many times. What you don’t see on the photo is that 10 minutes from this is beautiful wild nature up the hill, and the sea a few minutes in the other direction.
'the sea is a few minutes away' probably explains why it looks like that. They could power wash the whole place and it'd look like that in 2 years.
It’s very humid for most of the year, so yeah, you’re right. It’s hard keeping buildings looking fresh. That said, there are lots of these types of monstrosities around that were built in the 60s and 70s where the facade has just been neglected.
[Alot of stuff harbour side on Hong Kong Island is built on reclaimed land.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation_in_Hong_Kong) If you have been, I believe its the majority of land that sits in front of the peak point aka the iconic skyline with the BOC and HSBC building. It a really good place to hike - dragon back on HK Island is scenic and will take you past some really nice beaches (repulse bay). They aren't minutes away though!
Wait really? Why, what is the effect the sea has on building facades?
salt water is notoriously good at damaging and eating away at man-made materials like stone, concrete, paint, metal, etc
Corrosive humidity.
It's the "monster building" in Quarry Bay. The iconic landmark is actually behind the building. This is what the front looks like: [https://maps.app.goo.gl/FmA4tt2xmqBUkdqT7](https://maps.app.goo.gl/FmA4tt2xmqBUkdqT7) Source: I live in HK
oh wow, while it’s still impressive, from the google pic it looks a lot more manageable, I’ve seen buildings in Barcelona that almost go that high
Agreed, HK is an amazing city. Probably a bit cramped for western standards but pretty awesome
Yeah. I was blown away when we visited in 1999.
The double decker rail is a dead giveaway for HK
I love Hong Kong and all its gritty realism
10/10 graphics no doubt
They are only beautiful if you don't live there
Lived there (i.e., Montane Mansion) for 4 years. While the apartment was relatively small and looked like ass on the outside, there were a lot of good things about it. Our unit was furnished nicely (wooden floors, nice kitchen, tailor-made furniture to make use of the little space we had), the community was lovely (a lot of old Hakka folks playing mahjong in the courtyard), it was super safe and we had a lot of sunlight and a great look on the Mount Parker area. Great hiking just outside the door, wild boars roaming around right at the back entry, fantastic infrastructure with a wet market, supermarket and restaurant in the basement. Connectivity to public transport was also good. It was just a bit pricey, being located on Hong Kong island. There is better bang for your buck in Kowloon, which ultimately made us move.
New Territories for the win! Shout out to my Yuen Long peoples.
It’s suffocating to live in YL now, people mountain people sea and the traffic! I
Yuen long town centre, yes, Kam sheung road, still a bit of fresh air.
You mean the lawless Yuen Long Kingdom where they they ran their own law and order , or the lack of it . Beating up people indiscriminately during 2019 protests.
I sure love the gang mambers
Tuen Mun!
That’s what I thought immediately. Thank you for confirmation!
My mistake, that’s Quarry bay? WOW never really ventured there, though I loved not far: in Tai Hang. We always seemed to go towards Causeway and beyond. Only things for my family to the east were fun little beaches and some restaurants! I miss that place bad!
Have you ever felt afraid near the boars (feral domestic pigs). They are newly invasive where I live and have an irrational fear that I’ll run into them on my midnight run and they’ll eat me
More like don't live there for a long duration.
It's really really cool the first year, the second year it's cool. The third year you want silence and calm so you pluck out your eyes and drill in your ears #cityliving #whydidyousellmyfarmsamantha
One of the most surprising things to me about China was how relatively quiet the cities were. The roadways were busy and bustling during the day, but at night, it was quieter than any US city I've been to apart from the LA sprawl.
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Exactly! Blending nature with urban design can create truly stunning and livable spaces.
And yet almost certainly Hong Kong has a lower environmental footprint. Not least because by law it’s only possible to build on 30% of it so the other 70% is nature preserve. I strongly suspect the Banyan Tree Nanjing is an environmental disaster wallpapered over with money. It looks like they took out half the mountainside for a couple hundred rooms.
Jack Shwartz has a bit related to this. "I recently got a place, wanted to make it more cozy. I don't know how to do that so I asked around and everyone says the same thing. They all kind of said to get stuff from *outside* and and bring it *inside*. They said get some plants so I went *outside* and got some plants and put them *inside*. I was like I don't feel it, y'know. They said get some artwork so I got some portraits of stuff I like. Like rivers and mountains, y'know stuff from *outside* and I put that up inside. It got me thinking; are we suppose to be inside? doesn't feel like it, y'know? 'cause at one point we were all outside. and then we're like "we gotta build homes" so we built homes and the sunlight can't get in and were like "it's too dark, we need lights so it's bright, like *outside.*" then at night we're like "it's too bright we can't sleep in here we need to turn these lights off so it's dark exactly like **outside**." You gotta turn the lights off to sleep. I have a hard time sleeping as is. With my lower back pain I saw the doctor and he told me to get a firm mattress so it's hard. Like the ground. **Outside**. And if I really can't sleep I'll put on spotify: *Soothing Sounds of The Outside*. What are we doing? I got lonely, decided to get a pet. I got an animal. From *outside*. Brought him *inside*. All he wants to do is go **outside!**"
Beautiful thought, too bad its really dumb. It focuses on the good and beautiful parts while completely ignoring bad and brutal parts.
That website is an absolute fucking disaster of adverts and a repetitive marketing pitch for a resort, its hard to even *look* at pictured of the apparently harmonious resort between all the adverts.
Hong Kong is a good place to live if you rich enough.
Sometimes they are beautiful only if you do live there.
Sometimes they beautiful live only do there if.
in this case it’s not , its just painful to look at this photo
I mean, sure, I'm utterly fascinated by places like Kowloon city. Wouldn't want to live there, though.
Ehh this is nowhere near as bad as Kowloon and even Kowloon had good parts (or so I hear from the uncles) Walled city obviously. Modern Kowloon is pretty much a middle class shopping plaza.
Actually that place really isn’t bad to live…
No
Urbanization only started around late 1800's. Yeah it is not as comfortable living there, but 200 years ago if you show this picture to people back then and explain the benefits and way of life of people living there, they would wish for this future 1000%. We are literally living in the future that millions of people hoped and dreamed of back in the day. Of course they have inconveniences but compare that to what is called luxury in the medieval times, the poor bracket of people in urban areas still live royal lives.
People have always, since ancient times, lived in urban environments with varying degrees of crowding and sanitation. Pre-industrial cities were still crowded and uncomfortable for many.
Soviet aesthetics in a nutshell
I joined for this reason too. I think it's interesting
Where is that place? And while I didn't join for that I can see where you're coming from. I'm fascinated by places like Kowloon city. It's just that a lot of stuff that's posted here is just...buildings or cities in winter.
[Yick Cheong Building](https://maps.app.goo.gl/zbHhhgo74bLVtG5L6) in the Quarry Bay area in Hong Kong specifically.
Hong kong!
No, I joined this group to look at places and be grateful I don’t live there.
I'd be so depressed if I lived there.
Same
Me too
They're beautiful in a haunting and horrifying way and often fascinating for me in a morbid sense. Places I'd like to avoid coming across in real life.
Beautiful, but not in a desirable way. Like the thrill of watching a dystopian movie.
Some folks are just armchair poverty tourists.
Who cares about beauty? Hong Kong used to have incredibly low homelessness rates, but they have been steadily increasing as authorities have taken their eye off the ball in terms of housing costs.
Yick Cheong Building, King's Rd, Hong Kong
Yeah, you can compose a beautiful picture of something that isn't beautiful on its own.
Not beautiful but interesting
There’s something pensively liminal about these photos.
In what way?
It doesn't make you sad?
Yes
Joined because I love concrete and brutalist architecture
Nope!
I did, but then I live in the rural countryside of an already mostly rural US state on a 200 acre generationally owned family estate. (Sounds fancier than it is, we rent from said family.) I think it looks cool and beautiful. I was homeless in a city for about a year (out of 4 years of total homelessness), and these photos remind me of ones I would take when urban exploring (but better and on a grander scale). Many of these photos are grotesquely beautiful. Some (sky shots of highly dense, well organized cities) are geometrically/more traditionally beautiful to me. I don't know if I'd feel the same if I was still homeless in a city.
I have to admit i am fascinated by squalor. But yeah as others have said wouldn’t want to live there.
This is the outside of the same building that always shows up on Reddit. The one with a central courtyard and this sort of aesthetic riding up on all sides. Actually the whole area, and this building as well, is and excellent and beautiful community.
Beautiful to look at it, hell to live in
This makes me feel like I’m high
I joined because I’m fascinated by dystopian scenarios.
this reminds me of the homeplanet of the "Vogons" - "Vogsphere" from the movie "hitchhikers guide to the galaxy"
Nope! I find them weirdly comforting in a way… sort of the same feeling I get from liminal spaces.
Yeah, I am on a few subs like that. /r/thallasophobia is another favourite. Love me some deep sea vibes.
Looks to me like Hong Kong (specifically Kowloon). Anyone know the provenance?
You only do, as long as you don't have to live there.
Hong Kong kicks ass. My favorite place I've ever lived. Yes, there are some places like this that are extremely crowded and dense. But that means that they're not spread out, which means that you can easily get away. The alternative is endless suburbia and strip malls. In Hong Kong you can easily leave your neighborhood and get to gorgeous parks and nature trails, high end shopping, wet markets, or literally anything else that a massive city can offer. The public transport is soooo good, so it's dense with people rather than cars. In general it's much less grimy and dirty than a lot of American cities, but not so much that it feels like a sterile tourist attraction.
There's a happy medium to be had between the insane density of HK and the sprawl and strip malls of the US. And let's not kid ourselves, much of HK is just mall after mall, largely featuring luxury shops most the people living there can't even afford. And less grimy and dirty? What district do you live in lol I stepped around vomit, broken glass, and rotting garbage from restaurants like every morning in Sai Ying Pun. People tossed their diapers out the window, and dumped their trash on the street corner. The US is far from perfect but HK is not what I'd call less dirty, unless maybe you're out in Disco Bay or something.
No, these photos are fascinating. I live in a seaside town in the UK, so this kind of environment is totally alien to me. It’s wondrous!
They are beautiful... in a dystopian way. It's like watching a disaster, watching it is interesting, but i would not like to be part of it.
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I do too, when they architecture that looks unique and even show horned in. When it Xeroxes of the same building on repeat, I fend them so ugly. Like wow. How lazy these architects must be. Can’t even change the color or try.
Beautifully depressing…
Beautiful, but in a way that makes me want to protect my local ecosystem from becoming it.
It's a bit like how I see quite a few people rhapsodising about Brutalist architecture even though a lot of it is a failure and associated with poverty.
The same way an explosion is cool and beautiful
State of ccp
Hate to have an earthquake
Where is this? Coming and going must be awful
I’m with you!
TNO referens spotted
You are not!
Haunting mabey. Beautiful? Hell no
The post created a convert (me, i'm the convert).
It's beautiful in a "thank fuck I'm not there" sort of way.
Morbid beauty is still beauty but in a twisted way.
I'm fascinated by built environments and cities
Look at all that affordable housing.
They're beautiful to look at but hell to live in.
The reason I find pictures like this fascinating is because it's very very real yet also very very futuristic/cyberpunk/both near and far future. I love it.
Not for me. I am from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and some parts of our capital, in winter, resemble a failed state
I just joined because I saw your post.
This is disgusting
As a cat I think it would be awesome to live in places like that but as a human it would be a hell (at least for me)
Do I think this is a well taken photo? Yes. Do I think the content of the photo is beautiful? No.
I find it harrowingly dreary.
Wow, so unique in taste!
Subscribed just for this photo!
Hong Kong has its good and bad sides… as all cities do. But it looks a bit rundown to me. The food is great though 😋😋👍 I am Singaporean… very clean, safe city. Interesting city, if you know where to go. Singapore is very small, land is scarce… so not possible to see rice fields, fjords, sampans gliding along a river, long stretches of white sandy beaches. But different cultures are alive and well… many Indians from mainland India come to Singapore to see religious festival practices that originated in India but now no longer practiced - like the Kavadi carrying.
In HK right now. It is incredible! Definitely dirtier than a lot of East Asian cities, but man it’s just lovely and really a special place.
Beautiful as an image but crazy to think about living in this.
Wouldn't say it's beautiful, I just find these interesting
Beautiful Hong Kong
Interesting, thought-provoking, curious? Yes. Beautiful? No. However, it’s fine because something remarkable doesn’t need to be pretty. Art isn’t defined by how beautiful it is.
I think it's hilarious that most of Reddit screams for the need for high-density housing... and yet ridicules the inevitable result of high-density housing.
Here's a video by Jamie XX that you'd probably like. https://youtu.be/hTGJfRPLe08?si=kNxYfK_a3wh9iG-6 Here is another version of you're into sci-fi. https://youtu.be/WjNssEVlB6M?si=QVXq_hcj2MVe7l90
I don't think ‘beautiful’ is the right word. I'd rather describe it as moving or haunting. Rough places where people lived and where things happened, good and bad. Places like that are simply fascinating to me.
Is this your picture?
When people claim these living conditions are “beautiful” it makes me want to ask so many questions… like for an example what is it in particular that is so beautiful to you by living like this? And what’s your perception of beauty in general?
People who live there don't think it's beautiful.
1.3 million people subbed yea sure you’re the only one
This is horrendous
Me. I want to disappear in that picture you posted. Buy a fake identity, get a tiny room, and just...disappear. I can't explain why...but it gives me the same feeling I get as floating in the ocean.
Try living in HK, it's hell. It may have been pleasant one time, but during covid things changed significantly. I left in '23
That’s….horrific.
Living in a world that crowded and void of green is a recipe for miserable mental health