Imagine, if you will, a city of eternal night. A place so intensely crowded that sunlightnever penetrates its alleyways. Overhead, wires dangle from the ceilings. Neon signs fizz in doorways. All around you, 33,000 people are crammedinto self-built apartments barely 10m square, while overhead great airships rumble throughsky. Is this a vision from the future? The setting, perhaps, for some dystopian sci-finovel? Not quite. The place we’ve just described was veryreal, and existed within most of our lifetimes. Its name was Kowloon Walled City. It was once the most-densely inhabited placeon Earth. Situated on the edge of Hong Kong, the WalledCity was a place devoid of oversight. Claimed by both China and Britain and administeredby neither, it grew out the needs of the poor who flooded there, determined to rebuild theirlives. But was Kowloon Walled City merely a giganticslum, or was it something more: a radical experiment in communal living and architecturethat broke all the rules? Today, we’re tiptoeing through alleys ofeternal night to explore the most dystopian city to have ever existed. A Building Outside the LawThe standard image of Kowloon Walled City preserved in pictures is of a high-rise slumsurrounded by skyscrapers - more or less how it looked at the moment of its demise in 1994. But to understand how this concrete behemothcame to exist in the first place, we’re going to have to travel back through time. All the way back to 1839. China is still ruled by the imperial Qingdynasty.
The British Empire still straddles the globe. And these two global powers are about to gotoe-to-toe in a fight that will reshape Asia. The First Opium War was as one sided as watchingthe Incredible Hulk step into a ring with the Andrex Puppy. By 1842, China had lost so badly that it wasforced to hand over Hong Kong to the British. However, the Hong Kong the British receivedin 1842 was smaller than the Hong Kong we know today. Specifically, the area of Kowloon was justoutside. And it was here, in Kowloon, that an old fortlay. Dated to the Song Dynasty of 960-1279 AD,it was this semi-forgotten building that would one day form the core of the Walled City. The 19th Century progressed, with China losingyet another Opium War to the British and handing over yet more territory. By the time Beijing had also lost the FirstSino-Japanese War in 1895, the Chinese state was effectively unable to control its borders. Which may be why the British were able toforce yet another treaty on the Qing, finally giving them control of Kowloon. But the British Empire had a problem. While China might be weak, it was also verybig, and very close to Hong Kong. By contrast, London was nearly 10,000 km away. If the Chinese were really determined to holdonto part of Kowloon, there was little the British could do about it. And it turns out the Chinese really, reallywanted to keep that old Song Dynasty fort. In the 1898 Second Convention of Peking, Beijinginsisted on inserting a line, asserting ownership of Kowloon fort. In full, it read:“The Chinese officials now stationed there shall continue to exercise jurisdiction exceptso far as may be inconsistent with the military requirements for the defense of Hong Kong.” To which the British presumably replied “yeah,totes, for sure,” while secretly crossing their fingers behind their backs and winkingat one another. In May, 1899, less than a year after the SecondConvention of Peking had been signed, British troops marched on Kowloon fort, chucked theChinese out, and proclaimed it part of the British Empire. Just as they’d calculated, Beijing didn’tput up a fight. That line in the Convention about the Chineseowning the fort had been shown to be nothing but words on a sheet of paper. But here’s the thing about words. For such insubstantial things, they have afunny way of shaping reality. It was words on a sheet of paper, after all,that had given Hong Kong to the British in the first place. It was words on a sheet of paper - in thiscase the Zimmermann Telegram - that would drag the US into WWI. Before long, the British were going to regretgiving Beijing something as powerful as those words. A Home for the HomelessYou can trace how the fortunes of both China and Britain changed over the 20th Centuryjust by looking at how the British treated squatters in Kowloon Fort. In June, 1933, for example, the colonial governmentin Hong Kong became concerned about Chinese peasants living in the ruins. So they drove them out. While the peasants complained to Beijing,Beijing was all like “yeah, we already lost two Opium Wars to those guys, we’re notgonna fight them again,” and that was that. But jump forward twenty odd years and thingshad changed. In 1947, the British Empire was still reelingfrom the near-fatal blow it had received in WWII. Across the border, China was devouring itselfin a bloody civil war between Communists and Nationalists. As the bodies piled up, thousands fled acrossthe border into Hong Kong. Destitute, in need of a place to live, manyof them converged on the Kowloon Fort. By 1948, 2,000 Chinese refugees were squattingthere. That January, the colonial police tried toeject them. On January 12, officers marched into Kowloonfort, expecting a routine removal. What they got instead was 2,000 angry refugeesattacking them with rocks. The resulting street battle was a disasterfor the police. Although luckily no-one was killed, six wereinjured, and the fort had to be surrendered to the refugees. Could the British have taken Kowloon fortif they really wanted to? Of course! This is the British Empire we’re talkingabout, the guys who conquered half the damn world. But 1948 wasn’t a year when the Empire feltlike conquering. London had barely survived WWII. The Empire had just lost India in an orgyof ethnic cleansing known as Partition. There simply wasn’t the will to spark troublein Hong Kong too. So the colonial authorities retreated, bidingtheir time. In the end, they would have to wait decades. On October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao’s Communistforces declared victory in the Chinese civil war. Everyone who wasn’t a dyed in the wool socialistfled, many of them into Kowloon. Come 1950, the population of the fort hadhit 17,000. Nor was it just refugees anymore. Criminals, drop outs, peasants, anarchists,and people fleeing the law had all joined this melting pot on the fringes of Hong Kong. It was at this time that Kowloon fort becameKowloon Walled City. On January 11, 1950, a massive fire rippedthrough the fort’s makeshift town. Although firefighters intervened, they onlymanaged to save the ancient core. In the aftermath, those who’d been livingthere didn’t go elsewhere. They returned, began to rebuild. Out of necessity, they constructed new homesatop one another. A new kind of architecture began to take hold,one that grew organically, according to its residents’ needs. It was from these humble beginnings that thevast Walled City of legend would grow. But the colonial authorities still weren’tdone trying to evict its citizens. In March, 1962, the British announced theywould demolish the Walled City in one year. As they had in 1933, the residents complainedto Beijing. This time, Beijing listened. Mao’s government declared the British hadno right to interfere in the Walled City. That it belonged to Communist China. They waved about the Second Convention ofPeking, highlighting those words the British had foolishly agreed to, long ago. What else could Britain do? Faced with the prospect of war with CommunistChina, the authorities agreed not to interfere in the Walled City. Importantly, though, they also didn’t giveBeijing permission to enter Hong Kong and administer the place itself. Suddenly, the Walled City existed in a diplomaticno-man’s land. A place where neither China nor Britain wereable to enforce their laws. From this legal quirk would spring one ofthe strangest cities in human history. Life in DarknessSo, that’s the story of how Kowloon Walled City came to be. Now it’s time for us to take a trip inside,to wander its alleys and discover what it was like to actually live there. Well, the first thing to note is that it wasincredibly cramped. After 1963, the numbers of people in the WalledCity didn’t top out at 17,000. More and more kept on arriving; refugees fromMao’s Cultural Revolution or Hong Kong citizens who’d been ruined by the 1973 stock marketcrash. But even as their numbers swelled to an all-timehigh of 33,000, the space they had to live in stayed static. The Kowloon fort’s limits covered an arearoughly the size of four FIFA soccer pitches. While the British weren’t about to interfereinside it, you can bet your sweet backside they also weren’t gonna allow it to simplykeep growing. That meant the new arrivals had only one directionto build in if they wanted homes: up. By the 1980s, the Walled City reached fourteenstoreys into the sky - the maximum it could hit without causing serious risk to planeslanding at Hong Kong airport. The rickety towers that made up its heightweren’t apartment blocks that you or I would recognize. While some residents had normal-sized livingspaces, the average block in the Walled City was effectively a whole bunch of 30m squareapartments balanced precariously atop one another. In some blocks, these one room apartmentswere barely 10m square, smaller than the average American bedroom. And, yes, we totally looked up the size ofthe average American bedroom for this video. Who knew there was anyone actually counting? Within these tiny apartments, you would havemultiple families living. Typically, three or four generations wouldlive in a space not much bigger than a closet, the kids doing their homework in one cornerwhile mom and pop ran their business from the front. That’s right: business. Just like any city, Kowloon Walled City neededits entrepreneurs to keep things working. For many families, this meant turning thefront of their apartment into a shop of some kind. But there were other, bigger businesses, too. Because neither the British nor Chinese couldenforce their labor laws, the Walled City became a Mecca for those wishing to operatewithout a license. Slaughterhouses set up shop. Unlicensed dentists. Factories. Surrounded by the din and bustle of this humanhive, workers would package food for consumption across Hong Kong. It’s said that, at one point, 80% of allrice balls consumed in the territory were prepared right here, in these dingy corridors. Speaking of food, the Walled City was famousfor its snacks. You could get a siu mai for the equivalentof one US cent. That’s if you weren’t busy frequentingthe noodle bars. Noodles in the city were so good that theaverage Hong Kong resident would go to the Walled City more for the gastronomic experiencethan for anything to do with crime. That being said, crime did exist there. It wasn’t exactly the den of iniquity portrayedby popular culture, but it also wasn’t a shiny utopia. It’s time we met the shady people runningthe show. Organizing AnarchyWith no nation able to exert control over the Walled City, you might be wondering howit didn’t just transform into a permanent Hunger Games. The answer is that there were people enforcingorder amid. But not the police. It was the Triads that called the shots. While the Triads are synonymous in Westernculture with violence, within the Walled City their role was different. Lacking anyone else to do the job, the Triadswere basically City Hall. They organized waste collection, recruiteda volunteer fire department, kept order in the cramped alleyways, paid elderly residentspensions. There was even an old folks home located inone of the blocks, where the Triads arranged for the old and infirm to be looked after. But, still, criminals gonna crim. While they might have been able to fulfilsome basic social functions, the Triads couldn’t stop themselves from indulging in a littlebit of classic gangsterism on the side. The most destructive, of course, was the drugstrade. Getting high in the Walled City was an absurdlyeasy thing to do. Opium dens flourished in its darkest corners,while a rampant heroin trade allowed you go on the nod in the comfort of your tiny home. There was even a hierarchy of drug users. The wealthier indulged in opium, while thoseless well-off shot heroin. The poorest of all could buy little red pillscontaining opioids. For the equivalent of 3 US cents you coulddrift away and forget your troubles, even if only for an hour. Unsurprisingly, this led to rampant addiction,and all the attendant social ills. There were rumors of addicts dying insidetheir tiny apartments and not being discovered for months. Of families hiding corpses so they didn’thave to pay the funeral costs. Yet, while darkness undoubtedly flourishedin the Walled City, so did a lighter side of life. You won’t see it in many films set there,but the Walled City was a functioning society. It had schools. Kindergartens. Libraries. There were even two temples you could prayat: one squeezed down in the darkness of the lower floors, one hopefully situated beneatha skylight that was frequently buried under garbage. People did normal jobs here, too, albeit witha unique twist. There were mailmen, for example. A whole two of them. Each day, they would spend 8 hours scramblingup and down the infinite blocks, navigating the preposterous numbering system, squeezingthrough alleys which were an average 90cm wide. Because it had grown without any central planning,walking the Walled City wasn’t like walking a normal city block. In the late 1980s, one resident tried to mapthe place. It took him the best part of six years torecord the strange twists and turns and hidden routes that those mailmen had been forcedto memorize. Still, this outward chaos masked inner normality. On the roof, children would play soccer amidthe television ariels, oblivious to the airplanes booming overhead. Old men would sunbathe. It was like a typical Manhattan block, withthe exception that Manhattan’s population density was 27,000 people per km2, while scalingthe Walled City up to that size would’ve resulted in a population density of 1.2 millionper km2. Not a good place for claustrophobics. Still, by 1980, Kowloon Walled City was startingto become part of Hong Kong life. The colonial police had even started patrollinginside, on the understanding that they were there purely to keep people safe and not enforceannoying British laws. So it’s ironic that it was right at thispoint, just as the Walled City was starting to go legit, that the colonial authoritieswere again making plans to destroy it. This time, they would succeed. A Transfer of PowerIn early 1986, Sir Edward Youde was a man with a problem. The colonial governor of Hong Kong, he wasall too aware that Britain’s time running the territory was coming to a close. Fifteen months earlier, in December, 1984,Beijing and London had signed the Joint Declaration, paving the way for Hong Kong to return toChina in 1997. There was just one problem. Edward Youde had no idea what to do aboutthe Walled City. Like most of the Hong Kong elite, Youde consideredthe ungovernable block in Kowloon to be an embarrassing slum, the sort of place thatgave refined gentlemen nightmares. He also considered it a perfect propagandagift to China. Youde’s thinking went something like this. If Hong Kong was handed over to China withthe Walled City intact, Beijing would immediately use it to kick the British. And the last thing a loyal man like Youdewanted was to embarrass the Crown. From this worry grew the long process thatwould lead to the Walled City’s destruction. The first any of the inhabitants heard ofthis was at 6am on January 14, 1987. That humid day, 360 Housing Department staffsupported by scores of police sealed off all the Walled City’s 83 exits and fanned outthrough its alleyways, collecting information. By sunset, they’d registered 19,606 peopleliving within its walls. Eventually, that figure would be revised upto 28,200 people scattered across 8,800 buildings. The residents pretty quickly realized whatwas up. But rather than fight, they treated it allwith a shrug. “We’ll see what Beijing has to say,”was the most frequently reported phrase that day. But when Beijing finally spoke up, those residentswere in for a nasty shock. In early 1987, the Chinese government declaredthey were happy to let the British do what they wanted with the place. If they wanted to knock it down, good luckto them. See, while Kowloon Walled City was safelywithin British territory, the Chinese were happy to kick up a fuss over it, as a wayof reminding London that Beijing might be down, but wasn’t out. Now that they’d got Hong Kong back, Beijingno longer needed that reminder. In fact, they’d much rather see the WalledCity in ruins than have to deal with it themselves. And so the City’s fate was sealed. All through the rest of the decade and intothe 1990s, the colonial government worked to clear the area. New homes were offered to residents. Generous compensation packages were handedout to businesses. Some enterprising landlords even built newhomes during the clearance process, specifically so they could claim extra money. By January, 1991, 96% of residents and 51%of businesses had agreed to leave. The colonial authorities breathed a sigh ofrelief. But this is Kowloon Walled City we’re talkingabout. A place that always refused to play by therules. If the British wanted to tear this slum down,they were gonna have to fight for it. Death of a DreamThroughout 1991, there were warning signs that not everyone was happy with the demiseof the Walled City. Union Jacks were burned in the streets, whileprotestors waved Chinese flags. But still, things remained mostly calm thatsummer, if a little tense. Come late fall, though, they finally exploded. On November 28, protests broke out outsideHong Kong’s Government House. Angry former-residents marched through thestreets, before finally erecting a new tent city near Kowloon. The following year, 1992, there were skirmishesat the Walled City. Rocks were hurled at police. People punched officers. Given the volatility of the situation, theauthorities chose to let these incidents slide. That March, a small, homemade bomb destroyeda flat vacated in the clearance. Barely a month later, an angry resident attackedpolice with a meat cleaver, injuring several. In the aftermath, the colonial authoritiesdecided it was time to finally finish the job. That June, armed riot police converged onthe Walled City, making for the apartments where the last die-hards still held out. There were stand offs. Unwise words. The threat of violence. Yet, for whatever reason, things never spanout of control. One by one, the last residents left theirhomes, hands in the air, and surrendered to the police. On July 1, 1992, police reached the last hold-outapartment. At 16:30 that day, the middle aged couplebarricade inside agreed to leave. The moment they stepped outside into the brightHong Kong sunshine, the Walled City lost its final inhabitants. But clearance wasn’t quite over yet. Remember that tent city the protestors setup? Well, by mid-1992 it had become a magnet forformer Walled City residents and was starting to grow. Fearing that another Walled City would justspring up, the authorities quickly moved against the encampment. On July 2, it was dismantled. Demolition of the Walled City began eightmonths later, in March, 1993. It was a slow process, one that used toolsrather than dynamite. For a long time, it was still possible tomake out the outlines of the former City, even as its walls finally fell to the wreckingball. By April, 1994, the last of the Walled Cityhad been destroyed. After dominating this corner of Kowloon forhalf a century, the most famous slum in history was no more. When they tore the City down, the Hong Kongauthorities were acting with the best of intentions. At the time, it was seen as nothing but aslum, the vertical equivalent of Rio’s favelas. Yet, just as the favelas can be misunderstoodfrom the outside, so, too, was Kowloon Walled City. This was a self-organizing community thathad sprang out of nothing. This was architecture designed by the people,free from government interference. Over decades, it had grown like an organism,eventually becoming a real-life example of grimy, Blade Runner-style futurism. More than that, though, it had become a uniquecommunity. It’s telling that, when the South ChinaMorning Post caught up with a former resident who’d received vast compensation for leaving,he told them: “If I could choose, I’d still be runningmy air conditioner-repair business at my Walled City shop and leading a happy and stable life.” Many others who lived there have spoken insimilar, nostalgic terms, remembering the food, the people, the feeling of living beyondthe normal rules. And it seems this feeling has reached morethan just those who once lived there. Today, nostalgia for the Walled City is everywhere. You can see it in pop culture, such as theGotham City neighborhood the Narrows, which Batman Begins director Chris Nolan claimedwas modeled on the Walled City. You can see it in games such as Call of Duty:Black Ops, which included the Walled City as a playable level. You can even see it in Japan, where some wonderfulnutjob has meticulously rebuilt three storeys of the Walled City as an amusement park. Apparently they even import trash from theKowloon area of Hong Kong to keep it authentic. Kowloon Walled City, then, is a place thatsurvives in humanity’s imagination, living on in sci-fi, graphic novels, and visionaryarchitecture. It may have been a crime-ridden slum. It may have appeared only because of a diplomaticvoid. But the Walled City was a place that madeits mark on history. Who knows if we’ll ever see its like again.
The British Empire still straddles the globe. And these two global powers are about to gotoe-to-toe in a fight that will reshape Asia. The First Opium War was as one sided as watchingthe Incredible Hulk step into a ring with the Andrex Puppy. By 1842, China had lost so badly that it wasforced to hand over Hong Kong to the British. However, the Hong Kong the British receivedin 1842 was smaller than the Hong Kong we know today. Specifically, the area of Kowloon was justoutside. And it was here, in Kowloon, that an old fortlay. Dated to the Song Dynasty of 960-1279 AD,it was this semi-forgotten building that would one day form the core of the Walled City. The 19th Century progressed, with China losingyet another Opium War to the British and handing over yet more territory. By the time Beijing had also lost the FirstSino-Japanese War in 1895, the Chinese state was effectively unable to control its borders. Which may be why the British were able toforce yet another treaty on the Qing, finally giving them control of Kowloon. But the British Empire had a problem. While China might be weak, it was also verybig, and very close to Hong Kong. By contrast, London was nearly 10,000 km away. If the Chinese were really determined to holdonto part of Kowloon, there was little the British could do about it. And it turns out the Chinese really, reallywanted to keep that old Song Dynasty fort. In the 1898 Second Convention of Peking, Beijinginsisted on inserting a line, asserting ownership of Kowloon fort. In full, it read:“The Chinese officials now stationed there shall continue to exercise jurisdiction exceptso far as may be inconsistent with the military requirements for the defense of Hong Kong.” To which the British presumably replied “yeah,totes, for sure,” while secretly crossing their fingers behind their backs and winkingat one another. In May, 1899, less than a year after the SecondConvention of Peking had been signed, British troops marched on Kowloon fort, chucked theChinese out, and proclaimed it part of the British Empire. Just as they’d calculated, Beijing didn’tput up a fight. That line in the Convention about the Chineseowning the fort had been shown to be nothing but words on a sheet of paper. But here’s the thing about words. For such insubstantial things, they have afunny way of shaping reality. It was words on a sheet of paper, after all,that had given Hong Kong to the British in the first place. It was words on a sheet of paper - in thiscase the Zimmermann Telegram - that would drag the US into WWI. Before long, the British were going to regretgiving Beijing something as powerful as those words. A Home for the HomelessYou can trace how the fortunes of both China and Britain changed over the 20th Centuryjust by looking at how the British treated squatters in Kowloon Fort. In June, 1933, for example, the colonial governmentin Hong Kong became concerned about Chinese peasants living in the ruins. So they drove them out. While the peasants complained to Beijing,Beijing was all like “yeah, we already lost two Opium Wars to those guys, we’re notgonna fight them again,” and that was that. But jump forward twenty odd years and thingshad changed. In 1947, the British Empire was still reelingfrom the near-fatal blow it had received in WWII. Across the border, China was devouring itselfin a bloody civil war between Communists and Nationalists. As the bodies piled up, thousands fled acrossthe border into Hong Kong. Destitute, in need of a place to live, manyof them converged on the Kowloon Fort. By 1948, 2,000 Chinese refugees were squattingthere. That January, the colonial police tried toeject them. On January 12, officers marched into Kowloonfort, expecting a routine removal. What they got instead was 2,000 angry refugeesattacking them with rocks. The resulting street battle was a disasterfor the police. Although luckily no-one was killed, six wereinjured, and the fort had to be surrendered to the refugees. Could the British have taken Kowloon fortif they really wanted to? Of course! This is the British Empire we’re talkingabout, the guys who conquered half the damn world. But 1948 wasn’t a year when the Empire feltlike conquering. London had barely survived WWII. The Empire had just lost India in an orgyof ethnic cleansing known as Partition. There simply wasn’t the will to spark troublein Hong Kong too. So the colonial authorities retreated, bidingtheir time. In the end, they would have to wait decades. On October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao’s Communistforces declared victory in the Chinese civil war. Everyone who wasn’t a dyed in the wool socialistfled, many of them into Kowloon. Come 1950, the population of the fort hadhit 17,000. Nor was it just refugees anymore. Criminals, drop outs, peasants, anarchists,and people fleeing the law had all joined this melting pot on the fringes of Hong Kong. It was at this time that Kowloon fort becameKowloon Walled City. On January 11, 1950, a massive fire rippedthrough the fort’s makeshift town. Although firefighters intervened, they onlymanaged to save the ancient core. In the aftermath, those who’d been livingthere didn’t go elsewhere. They returned, began to rebuild. Out of necessity, they constructed new homesatop one another. A new kind of architecture began to take hold,one that grew organically, according to its residents’ needs. It was from these humble beginnings that thevast Walled City of legend would grow. But the colonial authorities still weren’tdone trying to evict its citizens. In March, 1962, the British announced theywould demolish the Walled City in one year. As they had in 1933, the residents complainedto Beijing. This time, Beijing listened. Mao’s government declared the British hadno right to interfere in the Walled City. That it belonged to Communist China. They waved about the Second Convention ofPeking, highlighting those words the British had foolishly agreed to, long ago. What else could Britain do? Faced with the prospect of war with CommunistChina, the authorities agreed not to interfere in the Walled City. Importantly, though, they also didn’t giveBeijing permission to enter Hong Kong and administer the place itself. Suddenly, the Walled City existed in a diplomaticno-man’s land. A place where neither China nor Britain wereable to enforce their laws. From this legal quirk would spring one ofthe strangest cities in human history. Life in DarknessSo, that’s the story of how Kowloon Walled City came to be. Now it’s time for us to take a trip inside,to wander its alleys and discover what it was like to actually live there. Well, the first thing to note is that it wasincredibly cramped. After 1963, the numbers of people in the WalledCity didn’t top out at 17,000. More and more kept on arriving; refugees fromMao’s Cultural Revolution or Hong Kong citizens who’d been ruined by the 1973 stock marketcrash. But even as their numbers swelled to an all-timehigh of 33,000, the space they had to live in stayed static. The Kowloon fort’s limits covered an arearoughly the size of four FIFA soccer pitches. While the British weren’t about to interfereinside it, you can bet your sweet backside they also weren’t gonna allow it to simplykeep growing. That meant the new arrivals had only one directionto build in if they wanted homes: up. By the 1980s, the Walled City reached fourteenstoreys into the sky - the maximum it could hit without causing serious risk to planeslanding at Hong Kong airport. The rickety towers that made up its heightweren’t apartment blocks that you or I would recognize. While some residents had normal-sized livingspaces, the average block in the Walled City was effectively a whole bunch of 30m squareapartments balanced precariously atop one another. In some blocks, these one room apartmentswere barely 10m square, smaller than the average American bedroom. And, yes, we totally looked up the size ofthe average American bedroom for this video. Who knew there was anyone actually counting? Within these tiny apartments, you would havemultiple families living. Typically, three or four generations wouldlive in a space not much bigger than a closet, the kids doing their homework in one cornerwhile mom and pop ran their business from the front. That’s right: business. Just like any city, Kowloon Walled City neededits entrepreneurs to keep things working. For many families, this meant turning thefront of their apartment into a shop of some kind. But there were other, bigger businesses, too. Because neither the British nor Chinese couldenforce their labor laws, the Walled City became a Mecca for those wishing to operatewithout a license. Slaughterhouses set up shop. Unlicensed dentists. Factories. Surrounded by the din and bustle of this humanhive, workers would package food for consumption across Hong Kong. It’s said that, at one point, 80% of allrice balls consumed in the territory were prepared right here, in these dingy corridors. Speaking of food, the Walled City was famousfor its snacks. You could get a siu mai for the equivalentof one US cent. That’s if you weren’t busy frequentingthe noodle bars. Noodles in the city were so good that theaverage Hong Kong resident would go to the Walled City more for the gastronomic experiencethan for anything to do with crime. That being said, crime did exist there. It wasn’t exactly the den of iniquity portrayedby popular culture, but it also wasn’t a shiny utopia. It’s time we met the shady people runningthe show. Organizing AnarchyWith no nation able to exert control over the Walled City, you might be wondering howit didn’t just transform into a permanent Hunger Games. The answer is that there were people enforcingorder amid. But not the police. It was the Triads that called the shots. While the Triads are synonymous in Westernculture with violence, within the Walled City their role was different. Lacking anyone else to do the job, the Triadswere basically City Hall. They organized waste collection, recruiteda volunteer fire department, kept order in the cramped alleyways, paid elderly residentspensions. There was even an old folks home located inone of the blocks, where the Triads arranged for the old and infirm to be looked after. But, still, criminals gonna crim. While they might have been able to fulfilsome basic social functions, the Triads couldn’t stop themselves from indulging in a littlebit of classic gangsterism on the side. The most destructive, of course, was the drugstrade. Getting high in the Walled City was an absurdlyeasy thing to do. Opium dens flourished in its darkest corners,while a rampant heroin trade allowed you go on the nod in the comfort of your tiny home. There was even a hierarchy of drug users. The wealthier indulged in opium, while thoseless well-off shot heroin. The poorest of all could buy little red pillscontaining opioids. For the equivalent of 3 US cents you coulddrift away and forget your troubles, even if only for an hour. Unsurprisingly, this led to rampant addiction,and all the attendant social ills. There were rumors of addicts dying insidetheir tiny apartments and not being discovered for months. Of families hiding corpses so they didn’thave to pay the funeral costs. Yet, while darkness undoubtedly flourishedin the Walled City, so did a lighter side of life. You won’t see it in many films set there,but the Walled City was a functioning society. It had schools. Kindergartens. Libraries. There were even two temples you could prayat: one squeezed down in the darkness of the lower floors, one hopefully situated beneatha skylight that was frequently buried under garbage. People did normal jobs here, too, albeit witha unique twist. There were mailmen, for example. A whole two of them. Each day, they would spend 8 hours scramblingup and down the infinite blocks, navigating the preposterous numbering system, squeezingthrough alleys which were an average 90cm wide. Because it had grown without any central planning,walking the Walled City wasn’t like walking a normal city block. In the late 1980s, one resident tried to mapthe place. It took him the best part of six years torecord the strange twists and turns and hidden routes that those mailmen had been forcedto memorize. Still, this outward chaos masked inner normality. On the roof, children would play soccer amidthe television ariels, oblivious to the airplanes booming overhead. Old men would sunbathe. It was like a typical Manhattan block, withthe exception that Manhattan’s population density was 27,000 people per km2, while scalingthe Walled City up to that size would’ve resulted in a population density of 1.2 millionper km2. Not a good place for claustrophobics. Still, by 1980, Kowloon Walled City was startingto become part of Hong Kong life. The colonial police had even started patrollinginside, on the understanding that they were there purely to keep people safe and not enforceannoying British laws. So it’s ironic that it was right at thispoint, just as the Walled City was starting to go legit, that the colonial authoritieswere again making plans to destroy it. This time, they would succeed. A Transfer of PowerIn early 1986, Sir Edward Youde was a man with a problem. The colonial governor of Hong Kong, he wasall too aware that Britain’s time running the territory was coming to a close. Fifteen months earlier, in December, 1984,Beijing and London had signed the Joint Declaration, paving the way for Hong Kong to return toChina in 1997. There was just one problem. Edward Youde had no idea what to do aboutthe Walled City. Like most of the Hong Kong elite, Youde consideredthe ungovernable block in Kowloon to be an embarrassing slum, the sort of place thatgave refined gentlemen nightmares. He also considered it a perfect propagandagift to China. Youde’s thinking went something like this. If Hong Kong was handed over to China withthe Walled City intact, Beijing would immediately use it to kick the British. And the last thing a loyal man like Youdewanted was to embarrass the Crown. From this worry grew the long process thatwould lead to the Walled City’s destruction. The first any of the inhabitants heard ofthis was at 6am on January 14, 1987. That humid day, 360 Housing Department staffsupported by scores of police sealed off all the Walled City’s 83 exits and fanned outthrough its alleyways, collecting information. By sunset, they’d registered 19,606 peopleliving within its walls. Eventually, that figure would be revised upto 28,200 people scattered across 8,800 buildings. The residents pretty quickly realized whatwas up. But rather than fight, they treated it allwith a shrug. “We’ll see what Beijing has to say,”was the most frequently reported phrase that day. But when Beijing finally spoke up, those residentswere in for a nasty shock. In early 1987, the Chinese government declaredthey were happy to let the British do what they wanted with the place. If they wanted to knock it down, good luckto them. See, while Kowloon Walled City was safelywithin British territory, the Chinese were happy to kick up a fuss over it, as a wayof reminding London that Beijing might be down, but wasn’t out. Now that they’d got Hong Kong back, Beijingno longer needed that reminder. In fact, they’d much rather see the WalledCity in ruins than have to deal with it themselves. And so the City’s fate was sealed. All through the rest of the decade and intothe 1990s, the colonial government worked to clear the area. New homes were offered to residents. Generous compensation packages were handedout to businesses. Some enterprising landlords even built newhomes during the clearance process, specifically so they could claim extra money. By January, 1991, 96% of residents and 51%of businesses had agreed to leave. The colonial authorities breathed a sigh ofrelief. But this is Kowloon Walled City we’re talkingabout. A place that always refused to play by therules. If the British wanted to tear this slum down,they were gonna have to fight for it. Death of a DreamThroughout 1991, there were warning signs that not everyone was happy with the demiseof the Walled City. Union Jacks were burned in the streets, whileprotestors waved Chinese flags. But still, things remained mostly calm thatsummer, if a little tense. Come late fall, though, they finally exploded. On November 28, protests broke out outsideHong Kong’s Government House. Angry former-residents marched through thestreets, before finally erecting a new tent city near Kowloon. The following year, 1992, there were skirmishesat the Walled City. Rocks were hurled at police. People punched officers. Given the volatility of the situation, theauthorities chose to let these incidents slide. That March, a small, homemade bomb destroyeda flat vacated in the clearance. Barely a month later, an angry resident attackedpolice with a meat cleaver, injuring several. In the aftermath, the colonial authoritiesdecided it was time to finally finish the job. That June, armed riot police converged onthe Walled City, making for the apartments where the last die-hards still held out. There were stand offs. Unwise words. The threat of violence. Yet, for whatever reason, things never spanout of control. One by one, the last residents left theirhomes, hands in the air, and surrendered to the police. On July 1, 1992, police reached the last hold-outapartment. At 16:30 that day, the middle aged couplebarricade inside agreed to leave. The moment they stepped outside into the brightHong Kong sunshine, the Walled City lost its final inhabitants. But clearance wasn’t quite over yet. Remember that tent city the protestors setup? Well, by mid-1992 it had become a magnet forformer Walled City residents and was starting to grow. Fearing that another Walled City would justspring up, the authorities quickly moved against the encampment. On July 2, it was dismantled. Demolition of the Walled City began eightmonths later, in March, 1993. It was a slow process, one that used toolsrather than dynamite. For a long time, it was still possible tomake out the outlines of the former City, even as its walls finally fell to the wreckingball. By April, 1994, the last of the Walled Cityhad been destroyed. After dominating this corner of Kowloon forhalf a century, the most famous slum in history was no more. When they tore the City down, the Hong Kongauthorities were acting with the best of intentions. At the time, it was seen as nothing but aslum, the vertical equivalent of Rio’s favelas. Yet, just as the favelas can be misunderstoodfrom the outside, so, too, was Kowloon Walled City. This was a self-organizing community thathad sprang out of nothing. This was architecture designed by the people,free from government interference. Over decades, it had grown like an organism,eventually becoming a real-life example of grimy, Blade Runner-style futurism. More than that, though, it had become a uniquecommunity. It’s telling that, when the South ChinaMorning Post caught up with a former resident who’d received vast compensation for leaving,he told them: “If I could choose, I’d still be runningmy air conditioner-repair business at my Walled City shop and leading a happy and stable life.” Many others who lived there have spoken insimilar, nostalgic terms, remembering the food, the people, the feeling of living beyondthe normal rules. And it seems this feeling has reached morethan just those who once lived there. Today, nostalgia for the Walled City is everywhere. You can see it in pop culture, such as theGotham City neighborhood the Narrows, which Batman Begins director Chris Nolan claimedwas modeled on the Walled City. You can see it in games such as Call of Duty:Black Ops, which included the Walled City as a playable level. You can even see it in Japan, where some wonderfulnutjob has meticulously rebuilt three storeys of the Walled City as an amusement park. Apparently they even import trash from theKowloon area of Hong Kong to keep it authentic. Kowloon Walled City, then, is a place thatsurvives in humanity’s imagination, living on in sci-fi, graphic novels, and visionaryarchitecture. It may have been a crime-ridden slum. It may have appeared only because of a diplomaticvoid. But the Walled City was a place that madeits mark on history. Who knows if we’ll ever see its like again.
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