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Kowloon Walled City Essay

Decent Essays
The plans and narratives of the Kowloon Walled City have drastically changed through the years, as it has been an unrolled and unregulated enclave between the British and Chinese governments. It began as an officially planed Chinese military fort and afterwards witnessed three distinct stages of lawlessness, demolition and rebirth as an urban garden. It all officially began in the 16th century, when the Chinese built a defensive garrison town filled with soldiers, civil officers and their families (Carney, 2013). However, when Hong Kong was leased to the British in 1898, the Kowloon Walled City became a enclave in the colonized territory, where no laws of the official state applied and everything began expanding spontaneously. The first stage of the city’s unintentional self-organization began in the 1950’s. It is widely known as the time of three vices – gambling, prostitution and drug dealing. The official regulations of the British did work on Hong Kong and were reversely reflected in the Chinese enclave. As soon as something was forbidden in the city-state, people massively poured into the un-ruled territory and let the sins to flourish. This way the Kowloon Walled City became synonymous with violence, crime and disturbance. During this period, the city and people became one, the buildings were connected by piping systems and wires, the water poured through the holes and sunlight could barely reach the lower levels. Yet, in the early 1970’s the situation started changing
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