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Before pontificating too much about the doom of Hong Kong, you should observe that compared to the US, HK has: - Far lower crime and incarceration - Better ed
by d_burfoot 9y ago
Before pontificating too much about the doom of Hong Kong, you should observe that compared to the US, HK has:
- Far lower crime and incarceration
- Better education (measured by PISA scores)
- Incomparably better infrastructure (compare beautiful, clean HK subways with laughably pathetic US ones)
- Better health outcomes than the US, 84 year life expectancy vs 79 for the US
- Preserves an incredibly large percentage of its territory for parks (most of HK island is a park)
- No natural resources like the US
- All of this with far far lower taxes than the US (government % of GDP is roughly 14% compared to 38% in US)
- princetontiger 9y ago.... built by the British, not the Chinese. The British gave the local Chinese a first world place. Again, HK and Singapore were both built by British folks. Look it up. Had the British colonized more places, it would be even safer. Malaysia is still defended by Aussies and Brits to this day!
- idra 9y agoIndeed. The best things about Hong Kong are all colonial legacy.
- arniewatch 9y agoThe British did colonize more places. Places like Malaysia, India, etc., that aren't as prosperous and developed as Hong Kong and Singapore. Much of Britain itself isn't as prosperous and developed as Hong Kong and Singapore. Obviously it wasn't a case of the British simply building HK and Singapore. Singapore wasn't a very prosperous and developed place when the British left in the early 60s. It became so subsequently under local elites like Lee Kuan Yew. Hong Kong and Singapore were built by its locals, who were mostly Chinese but also included Indians, Malays, and others.
- tesators 9y agoThe British also colonized the Middle East and Africa. So why are those places hellholes?
- inimino 9y agoHong Kong is a port city conveniently located (politically and physically) between China and the rest of the world. To compare a uniquely positioned city like that to the entire US population (which, for example, includes Detroit) is not particularly meaningful.
- robotresearcher 9y agoReplace the US with San Francisco or NYC and the list still applies.
- inimino 9y agoNow take Manhattan Island, politically and physically isolate it, restrict freedom of movement between it and the rest of the country, and shut the rest of the country off from international trade for a few decades and you'll begin to approach an apples-to-apples comparison with HK.
- yodiployo 9y agoNitpick all you want, d_burfoot is right. As Manhattan drags the West into the mire, Hong Kong leads the East's ascent.
- Retra 9y agoNow compare GDP/km^2: USA: 1,773,047 USD/km^2 HONG KONG: 63,633,823 USD/km^2. Huh. Hong kong has almost 36x the GDP density... With comparable GDP per capita. Is that significant?
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoHong Kong is a city state, so it isn't very comparable to another country. HK and Singapore models don't really scale out of their limited scope.
- anth1988 9y agoCountry of 300 million vs city of 7.