Regional cooperation is a key priority in Hong Kong’s first five-year plan. In the fourth of a five-part series on the plan, we look at how life in the Greater Bay Area can get better, with the right policies. Read part one here, part two here and part three here.
Eager to escape Hong Kong’s suffocating housing conditions, university administrative worker Polly Chan decided in 2023 to rent a weekend flat in Guangzhou.
On weekdays, she lives with her mother in a cramped 300 sq ft flat in Tai Po. On weekends, she does a two-hour commute via the East Rail line and Shenzhen North to her sanctuary for solitude: a 1,000 sq ft flat in Guangzhou that she rents for just 1,000 yuan (US$148) a month.
It is a steal compared with rental prices in Shenzhen which can reach as high as 7,000 yuan a month and the perfect place for the avid book lover to turn into her own reading haven.
Her only other option for her collection of books would have been to rent mini-storage units in Hong Kong, which cost at least HK$1,000 for a single cubic foot of space.
But now, for this twenty-something who earns HK$18,000 a month, the rent for the Guangzhou flat does not strain her finances. With cheap food available in the cosy neighbourhood, she has found the best of both worlds – a career in Hong Kong and leisure in mainland China.
“I am not renting storage space … I am paying for a tiny sliver of breathing room I have left,” she said.