The history development of Sydney and Hong Kong is quite similar. They are both the very primitive places initially. They are both the colonies of British. And they are both developed very fast and miracle in a not so long period under the British colonial governing. They are both now become a one of the most famous city around the world.
But the development is much longer in Sydney than Hong Kong. As Sydney had been developed more than about 50 years than Hong Kong. So, Sydney became a developed city earlier than Hong Kong.
Sydney started to develop earlier than Hong Kong, but Hong Kong developed faster than Sydney. After the Japanese invades in the World War II, Hong Kong had grown very fast in terms of their economical situations, population, urban development, technology, industries and financial services just within about 30 years and became a international financial centre. Such a miracle growth of Hong Kong is much more glorious than Sydney. As Sydney had been developed for over 200 years, the population, economic power and the international image are not as good as Hong Kong.
It is also no doubt that the geographical location of Hong Kong is better than Sydney. As Hong Kong is located at the southern coast of the Mainland China, north of the South-East Asia, and the west of the Pacific Ocean, transportation from all over the world is very convenient. It provides a link point between China and South-East Asia, as well as the overseas. Also, its sub-tropical warm climate is favourable except the typhoon in Summer. And the more important point is that, Hong Kong is located at the centre of the Western Pacific and it forms a heart of the world trade geographically either on sea or on air easily.
However, Sydney is located at the south-eastern coast of Australia. The location there is too far from European and American city as those are on the opposite semi-hemisphere. Also, the geographical facing of Sydney is only the New Zealand, which is not a main economical or trading centre. So trading and economical flows are harder. Although the climate is favourable there, the location of it is too fast from other countries of the world, make it loss the advantages in trading and global investment under comparing with Hong Kong.
Financial
and Economic development
It is no doubt that the financial and economic development in Hong Kong is better than Sydney. As all you know that, Hong Kong is a well-known international financial centre. It’s low income and property tax has being attract most of the foreign investment. Most of the foreign investment in Hong Kong is the financial investment. In addition to be a entrepot between Mainland China and Overseas, Hong Kong plays a important role on international trade. Also, the excellent geographical location of Hong Kong, which almost located in the heart of the Pacific, enhance its trading and commercial, or even financial investment. As a lot of capital flows to Hong Kong from overseas and Mainland China, Hong Kong become one of the financial and economical heart in the world.
But Sydney do not get this advantages. Sydney is only the largest city in Australia. The trading and financial activities are mostly confined to the local country, Australia. Although it may trade commercially and financially with overseas, but the volume is not as large as in Hong Kong. We seldom hear from that someone go to Sydney for investment or running some financial activities. But we always hear that people around the world go to Hong Kong for investment.
Look at the CBD of the two cities and you will find this fact. In Sydney, the density of the bank tower, financial building or skyscraper in CBD is much lesser than that of Hong Kong. And we also see less banks in Sydney than in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, nearly every street has banks. But in Sydney, it is not the case.
Before the field trip, I often think that shopping in Sydney is much more convenient and have more choices than in Hong Kong. But after the trip, I doubt with this thought. As I stayed for 7 days in Sydney, I found that the retailing activities there are not as prosperous as that in Hong Kong, even in the city center.
Firstly, is the quantity of the retailing activities. As comparing with the city center of Hong Kong, such as Tsim Sha Tsui and some commercial districts, such as Mong Kok and Causeway Bay, there are fewer numbers and varieties of shops, outlets and stores in the city center of Sydney. For example, the George Street, which is the most prosperous area of Sydney, only have three shopping complexes as I can found. And in the whole CBD of Sydney, not more than ten shopping complexes can be found. But in Tsim Sha Tsui, Central and Causeway Bay, we can find the shopping complexes everywhere. For the size of shopping complexes, I think those in Sydney is smaller than those in Hong Kong, because the shopping complexes in Sydney usually have fewer stories than those in Hong Kong. One example is that the largest shopping complex, Queen Victoria Building, only have three stories. For the varieties of shops, I found that Hong Kong is much more than Sydney. For example, for the chained-fast food shops, in Sydney, only McDonalds, Hungry Jack, Pizza Hut and KFC can be found. But in Hong Kong, besides these, you can found many other chained-fast food shops such as Café De Coral, Fairwood, etc. Also, in Sydney, I had only found three CD shops in CBD. But in Hong Kong, mostly several CD shops can be found in one street in CBD, and even in Kwun Tong, there are more than ten CD shops.
For the varieties of goods on sale, sometimes, Hong Kong is better than Sydney. For example, only Kodak Film can be found in the film shops. But in Hong Kong, you can found Kodak, Fuji, and Konica Films in the shops. Also, the varieties of books in the book shops in Sydney, such as the reading materials or supplementary exercise for students is less than that in Hong Kong .
For the opening hours, shops in Hong Kong is often longer than those in Sydney. Quite many retailing shops, even the department stores in CBD, is closed around 6 pm. But in Hong Kong, most of the shops and department stores in CBD can be opened 2 to 4 hours longer than those at Sydney.
For the prices of goods, I think Hong Kong is much cheaper than Sydney. The average price of goods sold in Sydney is about 150% of those in Hong Kong. Except pizza, milk and some Australian food, all services and goods sold in Sydney are much more expensive than in Hong Kong. For example, the marked price of a McDonalds’ Meal in Sydney is AUD$5.45 (HK$27), while it worth only $19 in Hong Kong. So, shopping in Hong Kong is more economical than in Sydney.
Although it seems that Hong Kong get most of the advantages on shopping and retailing activities over Sydney, some features and characteristics of retailing activities that we can find in Sydney is much more valuable to be a lesson for Hong Kong. For example, the shopkeepers in Sydney, almost, are much more friendly and polite than in Hong Kong. Whatever you buy goods in their shops, they always welcome you with a smiling face or willing to chat with you. Their good attitudes on retailing always make me satisfy and happy in shopping and leave me a deep impression. On this aspect, shopkeepers in Hong Kong seems not perform as well as those in Sydney. May be, Hong Kong is now improving on this under the active promotion of local tourism in recent years.
In additions, one more thing that shopping activity in Sydney is better than Hong Kong is the design of the shopping complex. For example, most of the shopping complexes create underground floors for shops. It is a very good idea for the high-density shopping mall built in such a crowed and high land-rent CBD. But in Hong Kong, only those big or famous shopping malls possess this feature. I think this is a good lesson for Hong Kong to build the shopping mall in the extremely high land rented CBD.
And one more point is that, most shops in Sydney have larger size than in Hong Kong. The average size of the Hong Kong shops is only the half of those in Sydney. This is due to the high-density of land use in Hong Kong with its limited land and concentrated population. Larger space for shops can make customers and shopkeepers feel more comfortable.
In short, the general situation of the shopping or retailing activity is much better in Hong Kong than Sydney. As Hong Kong has an honor of “Shopping Paradise, it is no doubt for that. As all we know, Hong Kong has higher numbers and varieties of shops, goods and services, and one more important thing is that, that Hong Kong gets cheaper goods and services than Sydney is an higher attraction for visitors’ consumption there.
For the living conditions, I think Sydney is better than Hong Kong. According to our observation in one suburb of Sydney, Hornsby, we can see that the residential houses in Sydney gain more space and facilities than Hong Kong. Their houses are bigger in size, mostly have two floors, with a private garden, or even a swimming pool. But in Hong Kong, we seldom find this kind of big houses. Most of the housing is in units in an apartment, or simply said to be a flat, which only occupies the similar space of a dinning room of the houses in Sydney. Approximately, the whole space area of one housing in Sydney is about 6 times larger than that in Hong Kong, for the similar family size. One more important thing is that, the open space between houses and houses is larger in Sydney, leaving more space, giving better & more tranquil living environment, and make it not so crowded-feel. But In Hong Kong, housing is in form of unit flats and they are always arranged too close together, make the crowded and noisy conditions. The environment for living in Sydney is better for some more evidences, for example, many green plants, flowers and trees are grown around most of the residential area, and the fresher and cleaner air makes the living environment much better, as well as more social facilities are found around the residential area. According to our observation in Hornsby and the some residential area in North Sydney, as only two of the examples of that, we found that there are some tennis court, keep fit centers, health centers, high schools, community centers, car repairing etc.
But In Hong Kong, especially in the crowded & poor districts like Sham Shui Po, Kowloon City, North Point or Sheung Wan, the housing condition is very bad. Only few, or even no spaces around the residential area have greening or parks. Even in the New Town, the greening is not as well and plenty as the suburb in Sydney as most of the land in Hong Kong New Town is used for residential blocks in high density. The serious air pollution problems in Hong Kong also make the living environment worse.
Whenever the living environment in Sydney is better than that of Hong Kong in may aspects, some disadvantage of living environment in Sydney are also can be found. For example, in the Red Fern in Sydney, the houses are small and old and some even dirty, as well as inadequate residential facilities. On the other hand, we can also see that some living environment in Hong Kong is quite good. For example, there are quite many green plants and recreational facilities in most public or private estate in New town. And some extremely luxuriant housing for rich people have extremely good living environment. But on my point, I only concern the general situation, excluding those special cases. Just compare those typical housing in the Sydney suburb and Hong Kong New Town, and you will found that the former is much bigger in size, containing a pleasant garden, separate and surrounded by many green plants. In conclusion of this aspect, in general, the living environment in Sydney is better than Hong Kong.
Transportation,
traffic and pathway
As
all you know that, Sydney is the largest city in Australia. Its
population, as well as the population density, is the highest in Australia. In
addition to its extremely large area, including the suburbs and hinterland,
which cover most of the residents of Sydney, transportation network is very
essential.
The
railway development in Sydney is over 100 years. As Sydney began to develop
about 200 years ago, with more and more British and other immigrants come there,
the Sydney expand and expand from the CBD continuously over a long period of
time. So, the government had to plan to build a railway network connecting the
suburbs and city center, in order to move the people for working or traveling
between them. There are over ten railway lines and one hundred railway stations
in Sydney, which touch most of the area of suburb. So traveling between the city
center and suburb is very convenient and efficient. For example, it only took us
45 minutes to travel from the city center to the Hornsby by the railway.
The
road network is also very widespread and well planned in Sydney. As the area of
Sydney extend to very large, and many and many suburbs develop on the far way
from city center, more and more highways or main roads were built between the
suburbs and city center in order to link them well. For example, Pacific Highway
links the suburb of Hornsby with the CBD, Sydney Road links the Manly with the
CBD, and the Great Western Highway links the Katoomba and Blue Mountains with
the CBD. The good road network makes the mobility of people and goods between
suburb and CBD more efficiently and easily. Also, the road network in Sydney is
also very complicate as many there are many diversions of highway from the CBD.
It is because of the large spatial extent of Sydney.
In
Hong Kong, although the area is much smaller than that of Sydney, road network
is well planned and widespread. And the government now is planning some new
roads connecting the new town and the CBD. But the road network in Hong Kong is
much simple than that of Sydney, because of the smaller area of the Hong Kong.
It is hard to compare the road networks of Sydney and Hong Kong because the
different spatial sizes between them.
The road of Sydney seems to be much larger and wider than that of Hong Kong. This is found when we crossed the road with much more constraints and time in Sydney. Wide road can hold more vehicles and make the traffic smoother and reduce the traffic congestion. But in Hong Kong, as the land use density is so high and there is limited land for road use, the roads are narrow, making many vehicles block in the roads and cause serious traffic congestions. This will also cause serious air pollution on the road, especially in the CBD.
In Sydney, the transportation or traffic facilities are better than that of Hong Kong. For example, on the platforms in train station, there are some soft drink auto-sold machines and even some snack shops. It serves the passengers more conveniently. Also, there are two storeys in the trains in Sydney, making more capacity for the passengers. And all of the bus stops have cover overhead. Also, the pedestrian facilities are very good. The footpaths along the road are also well designed and wide, which let pedestrians walk comfortably and easily. Moreover, there are some green planting along the footpaths everywhere, make it be more beautiful and graceful to pedestrians. But in Hong Kong, the pathways are too narrow and only plant some trees in the tourist districts or CBD. In some crowded areas, such as Mong Kok or Kwun Tong, planting along the pedestrian are seldom found. (This had been discussed in the sections of “Living environment”)
It seems that Sydney get most of the advantages of transportations over Hong Kong. But in fact, some disadvantages of transportations are also found in Sydney.
One main problem is the high public transport cost. For example, we took over HKD$10 just traveling from the RG Hotel to the Circular Quay by train. And one short routes of trams charged me nearly HKD$16. The high public transport costs will discourage people from taking public transport. They will be willing to drive their own cars traveling to and from the city center. So, we always found that in the rush hours, there are so many private cars along the roads, while trains and buses are always sometimes nearly empty. This will increase pressure on the road use. Fortunately, the sparse populations, the extremely abundant land, good land use planning and the wide roads save the residents of Sydney far from the frequent traffic congestion. As we knew that, most of the Sydney suburb residents go working just in their suburbs. This will reduce the movement of the people between the suburbs and the city center every day. On the other hand, in Hong Kong, the car ownership is regulated very strict by raising the cars prices, making only a smaller proportion of people owning a private car. As the car ownership is not popular in Hong Kong, with the low fee of public transport, there are extremely many people taking trains, buses and underground in the rush hours, or even not in rush hour. Although the capacity of public transport is very large and the car ownership is low in Hong Kong, there are serious traffic congestions in the rush hour in Hong Kong. This is due to the high population and population density, poor urban planning of city center, narrow roads and the slow road and railway network development.
In whole, the transportation networks done better in Sydney, as it can move the people between the CBD and suburb easily and with little problems. In Hong Kong, traffic congestion is still a serious problem. Also, many transport networks are under developing too slowly, making the problems continue to happen. Besides continue to reducing the car ownership, Hong Kong government should do more on urban planning, such as decentralization of the industry or commercial activities from the city center, making the new town self-sustained, reducing the spatial concentration of the similar industries or activities (such as financial in Central and industrial in Kwun Tong).
With the longer development history than Hong Kong, addition to their longer, wider and more complicate culture, it is no doubt that Sydney gets their advantages on cultural and historical preservation over Hong Kong.
When I open the tourist guide map, the first thing wondering me is the widespread of their museums and historical buildings in the Sydney city center. In Sydney, there are many museum with different themes, most of them are the theme of History, the totally 8 historical museums including Australian Museum, National Maritime Museum, The Museum of Sydney, Justice & Police Museum, Anzac War Memorial, Hyde Park Barracks and Custom House, provide a safe, systematical and proper way to protect the historical products. Besides the function of preservation, these museums also serve as a tourism function as they welcome the visitors to visit. Moreover, some museums are themed in Australian culture. For example, the Conservatorium of Music, Custom House, The Mint Museum, Art Gallery of NSW, Cadmans Cottage, etc. And some other special museum like Powerhouse Museum, Brett Whiteley Studio Museum, shows some special technological and scientific features which are very wonderful to visitors.
Look back to Hong Kong, although Hong Kong has some famous historical or cultural museum, such as the Hong Kong Museum of History, the Heritage Museum, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defense etc. it seems that there are totally less historical and cultural museums in Hong Kong, comparing with those in Sydney. The reasons may me that Hong Kong does not have a much longer development history or cultural background. I think most of the museum in Hong Kong is emphasized of science, technology and wonderful features, such as the Space Museum, the Science Museum and the Hong Kong Movie Museum in Eastern Hong Kong Island, which are not related to the historical and cultural issues. But in Sydney, only the Brett Whiteley Studio Museum is related to science or technology and most of their museum is related to local history and culture and they aim to protect, conserve and exhibit their historical products.
Maybe, this is the different cultural background between the two cites. In summary, on this aspect, Sydney does better than Hong Kong.
Sydney and Hong Kong are both the famous tourist spots in the world. But in fact, tourism in Sydney is better than that Hong Kong.
There are some evidences of it. As all we know that, Sydney had been developed for quite a long time. With its longer history and cultural developments, Sydney always has better tourist value. As you can see that, there are over ten museums in the CBD, which is mostly themed of culture and history. Also, the Rocks, maintaining the preliminary and primitive development characteristics of Sydney, is a very valuable place for tourists to visit. There are also some famous monument, such as the Sydney Tower, Darling Harbour, the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, forms ring of attractions to tourists. Many large scaled parks are scattered around the city center, such as the Hyde Park, the Royal Botanic Garden. In addition, some large parks with special themes such as the Toronga Zoo are found around the Sydney. There are also some interesting riding features such as the monorail and the city circle trams. All of them, with the fascinating Darling Harbour and Sydney Harbour in night, beautiful beaches of Manly and Double Bay, attract the tourists very well. Sydney attracts many tourists for visit every year, which is much more than Hong Kong.
Hong Kong also had many tourist spots, such as the heritage or historical museums, theme parks, cultural features, Stanley market or the beautiful beach of Repulse Bay, etc. Why Hong Kong still do worse in tourism than that in Sydney? It is attributed to the government policy and its international images.
With its longer and mysterious historical development, beautiful, valuable and famous natural scenery and monuments, unique culture and the livable and peaceful situation, the Australian government had developed the tourism in Sydney heavily for nearly half a century ago. The government invested so much to built and plan more attractions in Sydney. Such as the building of the Sydney Tower and the Opera House, developing the Darling Harbour as a tourist spot and the greening of the CBD. Also, Australia do have many unique features such as the special species of animals (Koala bear and Kangaroo) and the beautiful countryside natural scenery (eg. sheep farms) .We had also observed that there are so many Asian and European immigrants to the Sydney and make it become a mixed-culture city. And very fortunately, Sydney hosted the Olympic Games in 2000. These all are the reasons why Sydney government is willing to develop the Sydney as a tourist functioned city. The most memorial to me is that Sydney government held night concert and display firework in the Darling Harbour every weekend.
However, as Hong Kong is an international financial center, the government do not aimed to develop the Hong Kong to be a tourist-oriented city so far. Since the function is different. Hong Kong is a trading port and financial center, what the government and the community concern is just those things related to economic, financial and trading. So tourism is often ignored. This is also the reason why most of the tourist spots are not so special or famous. The lack of the motivation of the government to promote the tourism in Hong Kong attracts fewer tourist come to Hong Kong, comparing with the Sydney. The only good attraction of Hong Kong tourist is its “Shopping Paradise”, as many cheap and high varieties of goods and services are sold.
In the recent years, Hong Kong government promote the local tourism more actively, such as planning some large scale infrastructure, larger scale festival carnivals and large theme parks or other tourists attractions will be developed in the following decades. But that only with the attractions are not keep the tourists continue to come very well. Hong Kong should display its unique value of its culture, historical or other aspect. Such as the continuing actively developing of its shopping paradise, actively promoting its mixed culture and colonial history to tourists. As you can see that, there are so many souvenir shops along the main streets in CBD.
One other successful factor for the tourism in Sydney is the attitude of the local people to the foreign visitors in doing services. I think most of the shopkeepers or salesmen are very friendly to, polite to and initiative to help us. Some shopkeepers even willing to talk with you for some minutes if you are pleased. Smiling can be seen from the local people sometimes. These leaves a good image to the foreign tourists and it acts positive ways to its local tourism. But in Hong Kong, some shopkeepers and salesmen still do not as friendly and polite as those in Sydney. I think Hong Kong should make more improvement on this and keep the tourists continue to visit here, as Sydney.
In whole, on this aspect, Sydney does better on tourism under the active and long-term promotion by the government and the cooperation of the citizens. It is the reason why Sydney is a more famous tourist site over the world than Hong Kong.
Industry
The industrial development both in Sydney and Hong Kong is not so common. They are both the cities that ignore the industry always.
The reason why the two cities do not have a prosperous industrial development is different for each other. In Australia, since it heavily concerns with the environment conservation and protection, as well as the natural beauty images among the world, the government do not allow investment too much in industry because industry produce pollution too much. Mostly, the manufacturing factories are set up in other countries (eg. China, Indonesia), which provide cheap land and labour. And then the manufactured products are delivered from there to Australia for sale. This is why we always find the souvenirs sold in Sydney are made in China. Moreover, we seldom find the industrial activities in Sydney. The similar phenomenon also can be found in Hong Kong in recent decades. As the land rent and labour cost became much higher in Hong Kong, most of the local factories are move into the Mainland China. Nowadays, there are fewer and fewer industrial activities in Hong Kong. Most of the products sold in Hong Kong are imported from China, South-east Asia, Japan, Taiwan, USA and Europe countries. The situation of the industrial development is similar in both Hong Kong and Sydney. But the causes of the deterioration of the industrial activities are different.
The people in the two cities are different in term of their culture and race obviously. But there are some more minor interesting findings from the difference of the people between Sydney and Hong Kong.
In Sydney, the people living there are higher mixed. The “mixed” is refer to the race. As you can see, there are so many migrants from China and Hong Kong in Sydney. According to the official statistics, in Sydney, over 10% of the citizens are Chinese. And the others contain some migrants called Red Fern, and also quite a lot of the people come from other countries of Asia, Europe, America and even the Africa. Most of the citizens are migrants. So we can think that Sydney is a city which welcomes migrants from other countries very much and can hold many different races. However, in Hong Kong, the capacity of the races is not as large as that of Sydney. Over 95% of the people in Hong Kong is Chinese, and only below 5% are immigrants from Europe, Africa and America. The degree of mixing of the races is not so common. The reasons for that are the poor living environment, overcrowded and the strict control on immigration, especially for Mainland China. As we can see that, Hong Kong is lack of the attraction of immigration than Sydney. I think it is due to the serious pollution, high housing prices and overcrowding in Hong Kong, which discourage the immigrations.
The people in Sydney are much friendlier than those in Hong Kong in whole. They are more opened and willing to smile or talk with you if you want to. They are also very willing to help with pleasant. For example, on the day visit to Hornsby, there are so many residents and staffs in the information center gave us the useful information friendly. In Hong Kong, although quite many people are willing to help others, they are mostly not so open and friendly as those people in Sydney. I think this is the difference of cultures in the two different places.
Employment
The employment situation is also different in the two cities, although they are both the cities with high economic growth and highly developed. In Sydney, the unemployment rate is much higher than Hong Kong. One main reason for that is the problem of the government policy. As there are very high rate of subsidies and pensions for the residents in Sydney, the people will not be enthusiasm to find jobs because of that even they are unemployed or entire, the government will help them by heavy subsidies. But in Hong Kong, if one is unemployed, there will be no subsidies granted by the government. This will force people put more effort to find jobs for survival. Therefore, the unemployment rate in Hong Kong is lower.
Very obviously, the living style is very different in the two places.
In Sydney, or I should say, in Australia, the living style of the people is quite free and relax. They enjoyed so much on their life by leisure. And they will not too concentrate at their busy works. Maybe their works seem not so busy. Their free living style makes them always pleasant and happy all the days. So surprising was that they display the firework and music concert in the Darling Harbour every weekend, as well as that they finish their daily works before 5 o’clock. They have much free time and they always can do their own free things always. For example, every Friday and Saturday night, the people there will go to the bar after works.
But in Hong Kong, the lifestyle of the people is not so free as in Sydney. Think about that most people in Hong Kong are too concentrate at their works. Maybe Hong Kong people are so hard-working. They have little free-time and become more anxious. We can find that there are so many Hong Kong people suffering from heavy stress, but we seldom find this in Sydney. Usually, the Hong Kong people go home after works, which seldom go to the bar as the Sydney people. Even, some of the Hong Kong people finish works after 8 o’clock at night. I think this is the different economic rhythm between the two different places. As Hong Kong is an international financial center, while Sydney is a most livable city, that their living style is different is very reasonable.
Under the observation in Sydney, I found that Sydney people are good at art, or so called “good at enjoy the lifestyle”. For example, many buildings with beautiful design and decoration can be found everywhere in the Sydney. The Darling Harbour and the Sydney Harbour are also good design emphasized on sense of beauty. And there are art galleries everywhere.
The streets are also well decorated. It seems that art is the main mental lifestyle of the Sydney People. As they have much more free and leisure time, they can do more on art. But in Hong Kong, what people concern most is the money. They always work and even use the free time to do the part-time or minor investment. Most literary man always says that Hong Kong people are lack of the mental life or art lifestyle. I think this is one problem that makes Hong Kong people to be reality too much.
It is hard to compare the landscape between Sydney and Hong Kong, since they have different characteristics. We try to look at their landscapes by different views.
In Sydney, as the area is large, the landscape change and change from the city center to the suburb. Let’s look at the Blue Mountains, which is a wonderful and famous tourist site. It’s wonder deepen my memories. The range of mountains are endless. The scenery is glorious. The caves let us surprising of the nature……Such grand sight of nature of Blue Mountains National Park tells us that the landscape of Sydney countryside is excellent. And the great scenery of such a large area of the suburb also made us surprise. Even in the CBD, we discovered that the landscape there is elegant. There is little pollution and population, and the wide street made me feel free and comfortable. There are also quite many open spaces, greening and parks around the CBD, for example, the Royal Botanic Garden is just located near to the CBD. And there is quite many open and greening area around the Darling Harbour. All these gave us a leisure, natural-like and harmony landscape.
But the landscape in Hong Kong is less harmony and leisure than Sydney. You can see there are heavy noise and air pollution, traffic congestion and overcrowding in the city center of Hong Kong. The land use density is very high. Full of the tall buildings in the streets makes us be much oppression. And even in the suburb, the traffic congestions and the traffic noise always happens. The contaminating countryside by some large railway or reclamation and new town development works will further worsen the natural landscape in Hong Kong. Now, besides the southern coasts of Hong Kong Island and Lantau Island and the eastern coast of Sai Kung, there is nothing glorious natural scenery that really attract the foreign visitors.
Hong Kong and Sydney also possess a beautiful harbour. But Sydney manage and conserve it much better than Hong Kong. The Sydney Harbour is wide, and its water is beautiful is water of Sydney harbour is clear, calm and wonderful, while the Hong Kong Victoria Harbour is narrow and the water is dirty, always fill with rubbish and gusty. The culprit of this is the frequent reclamation of the harbour side by the Hong Kong government, making the harbour become narrower and narrower and disturb the landscape. Also, the dumping of the rubbish and discharge of the industrial sewage into the Victoria Harbour is also a vital ways to destroy the clean and beautiful landscape of the Victoria Harbour. As the Sydney government do not allow the dumping of the rubbish and large scale reclamation to the Sydney Harbour, the Harbour can be conserve to be a fascinating harbour known around the world.
Urban
Planning
On the aspect of urban planning, I think Sydney is much better than Hong Kong, although it had been planned for longer times ago.
We can see from the map that, the territory of Sydney is very large, over ten times than Hong Kong. And the Sydney city center is just located at around the Sydney Harbour. And the city continue to expand and expand from the city center radically, Form a ring of new forming suburbs around the city centre layer by layer outward. Now, we can see that there are many suburbs surrounding the city centre like Hornsby, Redfern, West Ride, Manly, Katoomba, etc. And the city is continue to expand radically and more and more suburb will be formed. We can see that the development model of the city of Sydney is very formal and simple. And with its abundant potentially developed hinterland, Sydney can expand and grow outward optimistically when more and more migrants come. Moreover, the suburbs are self-sustained. The residents of those suburb go to work, school and shopping in their suburb or the nearby suburb. This is a good urban planning since the residents do not need to influx into the city centre every day for works and make the city centre too crowded and congested.
But in Hong Kong, the urban planning is too chaos. As Hong Kong is too hilly, only 30% of the land can be developed for residential, commercial and industrial activity. The city center is concentrated around the Victoria Harbour. But with its limited land, the housing is concentrated together to develop along the coast of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. This make the land use and housing density become higher and higher Also, the new towns are not self-sustained, that means they can not support their own residents on works and commercial activities. So, everyday, a large number of new town residents flow in and out the city centre for working and schooling, and causing more serious traffic congestions. In addition, the limited territory area and the hilly relief of Hong Kong limits the urban expanding. And this makes Hong Kong government continue to explore up the hill and reclaim the land from the sea to solve the problem. But the increase of the developing land is still limited, and this will eventually lead to the sharp raise of land use density and make Hong Kong much overcrowded under the continue growth of the Hong Kong population.
In Summary, from the above comparisons on different aspects, it is hard to conclude that which city, Sydney or Hong Kong, is much more favourable to become a World City. As there is no certain criteria to define a World City, either economically, socially, culturally, historically, politically, etc. And as each of them had characteristic of certain aspects. I think, Sydney and Hong Kong are both the cities that can be called as a World City. For Sydney, its pleasant environment, good urban planning, good historical development, good culture conservation, excellent tourism and tourist site, and high attraction of the migrants from all over the world, and the highly livable situation make it favourable to become a World City. For Hong Kong, its miracle historical development, magnificent living and activities, prosperous economic, famous international financial trade centre , dense and high varieties of commercial activities, and excellent geographical location also make it favourable to become a World City. Maybe, short to say that, Sydney is a World City of livability, while Hong Kong is a World City of economical power.
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