From his logic, Hong Kong isn't dense enough for subways. Hong Kong would have to quadruple its population, in fact, to have the "required" density.
Hong Kong does in fact achieve the required density. THe stated cutoff is 25k/km2.
Kowloon's density is 43,000/km2. Hong Kong Island is "only" 15,000 but only a third of the island is built upon. HK Island is a bit smaller than the geographic size of "old" Toronto, over twice the population, and 2/3 the island is a nature reserve, or simply too steep to build upon.The urban areas exceed 40,000.
Even the New Territories, the traditional "Backyard" of HK, has a density similar to Toronto; clustered as a series of ~100-400,000 person "new towns" of very high density (Tung Chung on Lantau is planned for 27k/km2) with nature reserves and true rural areas between them. The East and West rail lines that serve them lie somewhere in that fuzzy boundary between metro and commuter rail; both lines run above ground except where tunnelled through mountains and where they terminate in Kowloon.
Even in HK there is no Sheppard-style suburban perimeter line. Everything's radial beyond the heaviest urban concentration.
lafard is correct.
Hong kong has like 60,000 people per square kilometre density in specific points in Kowloon, but on average across the whole territories (much of which is uninhabitable) its like 6000 or so according to google.
Land lease and property developer status of MTR makes their system work, they operate at a slight profit due to the real estate interests, not because of the system.
Plus, their capital investments were all paid by the Brits as a big f-you to China. HK had a lot of reserve cash, the British didn’t want the Chinese getting it, so they dumped it all into massive infrastructure spending right before handover, so Hong Kong citizens got loads of goodies, China got no money, but they also couldn’t complain because of the infrastructure that got built.
Government bureaucracy runs very differently in HK. To oversimplify it, every major department is basically a non-profit entity unto itself with its own property development arm, and all property is owned by the state, and released through land leases in a very controlled way, even permits for redevelopment, etc.
Plus they never had a military to spend money on – it used to be the Brits, now the Chinese are the de facto military, iirc.
It inflates land value like crazy, but it works out well in the big public admin picture.
Regarding the cutoff, L.A. or San Francisco or someone in California figured that out, and I figured it was a good one given their wage system there in hippy dippy highway gridlock Cali.
Singapore paid for their NATIONAL subway through a combination of property development, defense expenditure, and sovereign funds.