VICE Motherboard takes
A New Look at Kowloon Walled City, the Internet's Favorite Cyberpunk Slum...
"Borne out of longstanding tensions between the British and Chinese governments. It was spawned by the agreement, completed in 1898, to lease Hong Kong to the British for 99 years, which didn't include the Walled City [...] The result was a heavily isolated, ramshackle city-state. [...] The lack of outside support meant the Walled City was built on itself largely by itself, with commerce and industry mixed into itself as produced by a self-sufficient population. [...] Ingenuity was spawned by the city's isolation. There was little in the way of public services, meaning sanitation, public safety, and crime prevention were all the purview of locals. [...] The Kowloon Walled City continues to captivate people because of those problems, and its ills are also what make it such powerful inspiration for fictional portrayals of what's to come."
See
WSJ's City of Imagination: Kowloon Walled City 20 Years Later...
Plus definitely check out -- and please support financially -- the ambitious and timely
City of Darkness Revisited book publishing project on
Kickstarter by co-authors Ian Lambot and Greg Girard...
"We are working together again to produce City of Darkness Revisited, an all-new edition that will combine the best of the original book with several new sections that will fill in some of the gaps and bring the story up to date. We will explore the City’s dramatic architectural evolution from a near bare site in 1945 to a 17-storey megalith housing over 33,000 people at the time of its clearance. And we will explain the City’s unique legal and political status -- under two jurisdictions but effectively managed by neither -- and how this coloured every aspect of life there. A third theme will delve into the myths and realities of the Triads’ activities within the City and how these might -- or might not -- have been effectively policed. And finally we will describe how the influence of the Walled City has spread into popular culture worldwide, and how this has allowed interest in the City -- either as myth or physical reality -- to flourish."
And as extra bonus, Ian and Greg and friend Lisa point out
Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong, Urban Fabric -- Historic project prepared by Lia Tramontini, Haneen Dalla-Ali, Mona Dai, and Christopher Glebe...
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