Sai Ying Pun: An Elegy to Old Hong Kong
How Sai Ying Pun used to be like and why it has completely changed over the past decade.
Once a quiet fishing port on Western Hong Kong Island, Sai Ying Pun has undergone a dramatic transformation over 150 years to become home to 15,000 residents. The recent extension of the MTR’s Island Line and comprehensive urban renewal projects have accelerated its gentrification. As traditional tenement buildings (Tong Lau) give way to luxury high-rises, and local shops yield to upscale establishments along Third Street and High Street, longtime residents marvel at their neighborhood’s rapid metamorphosis. Yet this transformation is no accident, but rather the culmination of deliberate government-led gentrification policies.
The Urban Development History of Sai Ying Pun
The district’s evolution began in 1841 with the establishment of a British Military Camp. The first civilian settlers were largely refugees from the Taiping Rebellion, working in waterfront warehouses or awaiting overseas passage. Between 1855 and 1861, the government developed upper Sai Ying Pun, establishing its characteristic grid of numbered streets. The 1949 influx of mainland immigrants prompted amendments to building regulations, transforming the landscape from traditional tenements to 7–12 story Tong Lau buildings.
A pivotal shift occurred in 2001 when the newly-established Urban Renewal Authority (URA) partnered with private developers to create an “Elite Neighborhood.” This initiative materialized in 2011 with the completion of Island Crest on Second Street. The 2013 Centre Street Escalator Link and 2015 MTR station opening further catalyzed the area’s gentrification.
The Ongoing Gentrification Process
The Centre Street Escalator Link attempted to replicate Central’s successful Soho district model. High Street transformed into a clone of Staunton Street, dominated by wine bars and fine dining establishments. The MTR connection made Sai Ying Pun newly attractive to CBD professionals, while census data revealed a significant increase in non-Chinese residents in the Central and Western district, from 43,560 in 2011 to 50,598 in 2016.
The district’s physical transformation is stark. Modern developments like Island Crest house over 450 units, replacing buildings that previously accommodated 777 residents. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department’s creation of pocket parks and the 41,000m² Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park in 2011 added crucial recreational spaces. However, this development came at the cost of traditional street patterns and community spaces.
Old-style buildings used to be ubiquitous in old districts like Sai Ying Pun. However, some of them have been lacking maintenance and poorly constructed in recent years. Homeowners are either too old or short of money to afford the maintenance. A majority of them are renters and thus have zero interest in spending money on maintenance. This alone incentivizes the government to implement a gentrification plan in this old district.
The Transformation of the Cityscape since 2010
Sai Ying Pun was considered as one of the oldest districts on Hong Kong Island. Therefore, there is no surprise that it has been ‘revitalized’ by the government-led gentrification plan in recent years. In fact, it is the effort of both the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) and Urban Renewal Authority (URA) to revitalize the old district. Since 1990, LCSD had been seeking lands to create open spaces for recreational use. They targeted ‘the dense urban areas between Queen’s Road West and Des Voeux Road West by demolishing old Tong Lau within the street blocks’ and transformed the areas into green pocket parks designed for kids and elderly. Moreover, the 41000 m² Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park was inaugurated on the harbourfront of Sai Ying Pun in 2011, providing a standard football court, basketball courts, a lawn and a track. The increase in the proportion of open spaces in Sai Ying Pun not only transfigured the city’s landscape, but also provides the recreation grounds for the residents here.
Island Crest is one of the most extensive community displacement projects in Sai Ying Pun and greatly transfigured Sai Ying Pun. The whole project affected 9 blocks of old Tong Lau building that were built in 1960s or earlier, and replaced them with high-rise residential buildings. First of all, it changed the outlook of the area completely. Four lanes (餘步里東、餘步里西、子同巷及泰來里) on the original site disappeared due to the redevelopment. Second, and not surprisingly, it ‘had a larger impact on the street character as they radically changed the ground floor permeability’. There are open areas on the ground floor of Island Crest now connect to the streets. The field observation from the same research also showed that elderly people, in particular, used those places for staying and chatting.
The Impact of Gentrification in Sai Ying Pun
One of the most immediate effects of gentrification would be the skyrocketing house price and rents. This transpires in different gentrified neighborhoods across the globe. Since 2010, there have been a total of 12 new property projects completed in Sai Ying Pun. All of them priced above HKD$20000 per square feet. A 763 sq. ft. apartment of Island Crest, the URA’s redevelopment project, cost $19 million in 2015, which is around $24900 per square foot. The price doubled the average property price in Hong Kong Island. The numbers did prove the rising property price in relation to the gentrification scheme.
Alongside the property price, everything in the neighborhood has become less affordable due to the increase in the rental cost and the elimination of local businesses. Given the fact the Sai Ying Pun MTR station has been completed and thus the community has become much more gentrified, most shop and restaurant owners now have to pay higher rents in order to survive in the neighborhood. This creates a series of closure of small businesses. The successors to those local businesses are mainly high-end boutique and Western restaurants that can afford the rent and suit the newly moved-in middle-class community. A lot of local small businesses selling cheap stuff or daily necessities were driven out due to the rising rents. Shops in the neighborhood become homogeneous. Eventually, it may drive low-income residents out Sai Ying Pun as they may no longer be able to afford the rising living cost in this community.
Gentrification makes an enormous implication on the connections among the people within the community. On one hand, it weakens the relationship between residents and the neighborhood as the locale has been changing rapidly and old buildings or stores can barely survive. Old traditions, on the other hand, are also fading in Sai Ying Pun. There used to be a massive religious activity next to the Fuk Tak Temple on every Day 18–21 of the first month of the year in the Chinese calendar and Ghost Festival . At the time, Taoist priests were hired to perform rituals inside the Bamboo scaffolding. Zhizha figures of deities would be displayed as well. But then, the redevelopment project came in and some of the neighbors might move away from Sai Ying Pun. The gentrified community also forced local business out of the town, and thus weaken the community connections among neighbors.
The middle-class lifestyle brings in a new sense of community among newcomers within Sai Ying Pun. Social enterprises, NGOs and new kinds of local businesses play an important role to better connect both the middle-class dwellers and also the locals who have been living in Sai Ying Pun for long. By initiating community activities, they are developing a new identity within this community. Caritas and The Conservancy Association Centre for Heritage, for instance, actively participate in the Sai Ying Pun project to connect locals with this rapidly transforming neighborhood. They organize different community activities and invite the residents here to revisit the history of Sai Ying Pun and also discover the new landscape of Sai Ying Pun. Meanwhile, newly-opened bars and cafes would be the perfect locations for newcomers to relax and socialize. They may be interested in the old traditions but more welcome to the changes here. Therefore, we are witnessing the hipster culture overtaking the traditional Chinese culture in Sai Ying Pun when the town becomes more and more gentrified.
The Future of Hong Kong Urban Development
Although gentrification is an extremely common phenomenon happening in different societies, the case of Sai Ying Pun has its own unique features: the Western middle-class culture is replacing the traditional Chinese community. A new form of community identity also emerges. However, Sai Ying Pun may be changing too rapidly, and not everyone is used to it. As long as Hong Kong’s public planning policies remain dominantly focused on these utilitarian and economic aspects, it remains difficult to socially benefit the existing, local communities and raise their quality of living whilst aggressively gentrifying the town.
Sai Ying Pun’s transformation exemplifies Hong Kong’s broader urban renewal challenges. While gentrification has modernized the district and attracted new investment, it has also eroded traditional community structures and cultural practices. The district’s evolution raises crucial questions about urban development’s social costs and the balance between modernization and preservation. As one of Hong Kong Island’s earliest urbanized areas, Sai Ying Pun’s ongoing transformation serves as both warning and lesson for future urban renewal projects.
