The most serious public management challenge in Hong Kong is the increasing population. Not only the local birth is included, but also the visitors. According to the statistics released by the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong population was estimated 7,184,000 at mid-2013. The Hong Kong Resident Population also predicted that there will be 8.47 million in mid-2041. The population in Hong Kong keeps increasing. Plus the increasing visitors, Hong Kong seems to be very crowd in the future. In 2012, the total visitor arrivals gain 16% more than last year (which is 48,615,113 arrivals). And seems that Hong Kong can’t copy with this soaring population well. Actually, this problem really impact on citizens’ daily life. I live in Yuen Long, a small town in New Territory, for 18years. And I found that the population increased sharply in this 2 years. There are not too many tourist spots, but it still attracts lots of visitors (mainly from China). They are not coming to sightseeing. But to buying their daily need. Every time I go out, it’s really crowd in the town center. Visitors carried their suitcase around the way, some may tidy up their suitcase on the path or in front of the store. I always want to be care of my legs will be run over. A 5 minutes travel time lengthens to 15 minutes, even more. There is traffic jam on the path and also road. This situation happens especially on Saturday and Sunday. If the population keeps increasing, I think I can only keep staying at home on weekends as ‘the traffic jam’ really annoys people in a bad mood. In fact, this population problem is not only bother citizens, but also other aspects. That’s why I think it is the most serious public management challenge. The main impact is congestion which is attributing to visitors and local citizens number. It happens on the high way while happens inside the public transport also. In Hong Kong, MTR is one of the popular public transportation. And I will use it as an example showing that the congestion becomes more serious. Recently, a news has released that the occupancy rate on some MTR line reached 70% in peak hours. Besides, the MTR happened several accidents in a short time. ‘The long queues have been around for so many years without much improvement. It would be magic if you could get on the train easily at 6.30pm, said Raven Wong Kar-yin, 40, an insurance worker waiting for a Tsuen Wan-bound train at Admiralty.’ It reveals that the congestion in MTR in rush hours is severe, and people think that MTR did nothing to solve this problem, can the railway system afford more client when the population is increased? If the MTR still can’t find the solution, it must not. Another impact is housing problem which is attributing to local increasing. Housing problem is serious too. However, Hong Kong is not lack of apartment in fact. The main reason is the increase rate of salary is far from the price and rent rate of apartment. As I know, mostly citizens are not rich enough to afford such high-priced apartment. They tend to living in some cheaper apartment. Usually, the quality of these apartments is low; the living environment is poor (such as cage home, subdivided unit). Therefore, the need of public building increases (as the rent is reasonable and the better living environment). And it leads to the shortage of public building. To solve this problem, the government should first cope with the population policy and also the economic structure. In addition, the increasing (local) population will raise expense of welfare which is also attributing to local increasing. Actually, Hong Kong is one of the lowest cities in fertility rate, only 1.3 total fertility rate in 2012. Nevertheless, because of the continual inflow of persons from outside Hong Kong to the population, it can still maintain a positive growth. But this increasing population can’t tackle the aging society. ‘The population is expected to remain on an ageing trend. The proportion of the population aged 65 and over is projected to rise markedly from 13% in 2011to 30% in 2041’ as our fertility rate is low. As a result, the expense of welfare must be increased. And it will affect our economic development. To be honest, the increasing visitors are inevitable. We can’t ban them coming to Hong Kong, right? And we should happy about the tourism helps our economy… the government can improve the facilities in order to tackle the increased visitors. But for our local increase, the government can solve it only in a long-term policy, maybe education. If the government can control the population well, many problems can be released/ solved at the same time. REFERENCE 1. Ada, L., & Stuart, L. (2014, January 24). 100 million tourists by 2023 prediction sparks fears the MTR will not cope. South China Morning Post. Retrieved March 09, 2014, from scmp/news/hong-kong/article/1411884/mtr-becoming-too-much-squeeze 2. Census and Statistics Department. (2012). Hong Kong Population Projections 2012 – 2041. Retrieved March 09, 2014, from statistics.gov.hk/pub/B1120015052012XXXXB0100.pdf 3. Press Release (13 Aug 2013) :Mid-year Population for 2013 |Census and Satistics Department. (2013). Retrieved March 09, 2014, from https://censtatd.gov.hk/press_release/pressReleaseDetail.jsp?charsetID=1&pressRID=3159 4. Tourism Commission – Tourism Performance. (2013). Retrieved March 09, 2014, from tourism.gov.hk/english/statistics/statistics_perform.html# 5. 剖析香港房屋問題癥結 |RCCPRR. (2012). Retrieved March 09, 2014, from dev.arch.hku.hk/creue/knowledge-exchange/hkejm201209/ (2460)
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 13:27:08 +0000
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