One picture shows how absurdly tiny apartments are in Hong Kong - and people are paying a premium for them
- Hong Kong is the most expensive city in the world for housing.
- The dire housing situation has spawned tons of increasingly tiny apartments.
- Many bathrooms in tiny apartments have a combination shower-toilet, which is as strange as it sounds.
I knew Hong Kong apartments were small. I didn't realize they were that small.
I had booked what I thought was a studio apartment in Mong Kok, a neighborhood on Kowloon island reputed to be the most densely populated place on earth.
Mong Kok, which literally translates to "busy corner" in Cantonese, has a population density of 130,000 per square kilometer, according to the Guinness World Records.
The apartment was more of a sub-divided room off a sectioned-off hallway. Inside was enough space for a queen size bed, a small nightstand with a TV on it, and another small nightstand with a hot water heater.
If I was standing next to the bed, there was not enough room for another person to stand next to me, which became particularly difficult to manage as I was traveling with my girlfriend. If the suitcases were open on the floor, there was no room to stand. I ended up working on my laptop from the bathroom if I needed a place to sit.
And, while all that might be expected of any small room - even in some shoebox apartments I've lived in in New York City - it was the bathroom that drove home the size of the apartment.
After a long day of traveling, I figured it was time to take a hot shower, but the bathroom was only big enough for a toilet and a small sink.
Where was the shower?
That's when it hit me. The shower was right above the toilet. They even shared piping so that it appeared that the same water used for the toilet was used for the shower.
In order to shower, one had to either sit on or straddle the toilet seat. It was, let's say, an experience.
But while I only had to deal with such a strange situation for a few days, the reality is that's the bathroom setup is extremely common in the city.
The city has been ranked the least affordable city for housing in the world for eight years running, according to the Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey.
Most Hong Kongers (read: not wealthy expats) live in tiny apartments with an ever-proliferating range of colorful names that bely the reality: micro-flats, nano apartments, coffin apartments, and cage homes.
The room I stayed in was positively large compared to the living situation for the city's poorest residents.
According to a survey conducted by Kwai Chung Subdivided Flat Residents Alliance last year, the average living space for the city's poorest residents was about 50 square feet, about half the size of a parking space and equivalent to that of those living in shared dormitories in correctional facilities.
Nano apartments - apartments with a square footage less than 200 - are becoming more popular due to their affordability, according to the South China Morning Post. But affordability is a relative term. Many sell for as much as $500,000.
Carrie Poon, a guide who took me on a tour of Sham Shui Po, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, told me that most young Hong Kongers have all but given up the idea of owning an apartment due to the housing situation and are resigned to renting tiny apartments, as they are the only thing they can afford.
"We'll probably be renting forever," she said.
The housing situation has even spawned new inventions like the OPod, a 100 square-foot "tube home" designed by Hong Kong architect James Law and made from repurposed concrete water pipes.
The housing situation is the most visible result of the city's widening wealth gap, which hit record highs last year. The richest 10% of Hong Kongers earn 44 times the poorest families, according a government report.