Got into a heated discussion with a coworker over this. My stance is it was probably for the best it was demolished. The entire thing was a massive fire and disease hazard. Massive amounts of crime and unlicensed businesses too. Despite its reputation for a kind of tight knit anarchist type community, most of the stuff I've read seems to suggest triads and the HK police were largely running the place.
I hate forceful eviction as much as the next person here. What else could have been done? There was some compensation given to the residents, but I know some residents complained it wasn't enough.
My coworker's stance is the place should have remained as it was, without any sort of intervention whatsoever, despite being so hazardous.
How do y'all feel?
They should have kept it up as a relic or historical artifact. It's small enough that it isn't going to get in the way really and it's definitely something that could have been studied.
They should have moved everyone living there to a better built area and left it up kinda like what China is doing with the old dangerous towns in the rural areas (build better housing and maintain the old town as a heritage site and allow the locals to do tourism and historical stuff with it)
I mean, if you keep a building like that where it's such a safety hazard, someone will get lost and hurt while doing tourism. You'd have to significantly improve the structure to make it safe enough even for that.
I’m kinda ambivalent about the safety of tourists (despite the fact I would have been one if I could afford it and it was turned into a tourist site). Maybe just keep a really rickety VIP section priced only so rich fucks could go there and feel special as they step into a puddle of water next to some exposed wiring that’s somehow still live.
You’d have to improve it to stop it falling apart and ceasing to be am attraction either way though.
Then do that, with people moved out it's way easier to go in and reenforce sections of the building. The most important parts would be the layout and additions made by the tenants themselves.
It would have caught fire eventually I'm sure, something as stupid as a lost vape or iPod battery going bad and catching fire in the mess somewhere. Idk if you could ever bring that place up to code.