Green Belt Area and the Development

In most of the city, there are set some land for the green belt area to let the citizen to have a place to hiking or camping this area. Most of this is near the urban area. The other advantage is the natural area and the eco-system can be protected and the air quality will be improved within the urban area. It shows that the green belt area is important for the cities.

Green Belt area close the uran area          Source: The telegraph

However, in between Development and the green belt, what should we choose? Due to some cities, for example London, Hong Kong, are facing the problem of housing crisis. The demand of the house keep increasing and not enough land supply to build the new apartment. Therefore, someone suggest to use part of the green belt area to build the apartment.

Take Hong Kong for an example. The land supply is not enough in Hong Kong because the flat land is not enough to build the new apartment. The Hong Kong Government was change 57 hectares’ land to build the residential development. It will provide around 80,000 residential flats.

Above pic shown the heat is on Hong Kong urban climatic                                                   Source: SCMP

According to the press release of the Hong Kong government, using the green belt for developing residential development have big economic benefit. Due to the green belt area was removed. The heat island effect will become more and more serious. There is nick name in Hong Kong called “Cement Forest” because there is not enough green plant inside of the urban. It will cause the city become hotter and the energy consumption become more for the ventilation or air-con

The urban development and the green belt area should be balance. Not just focus on the economic issues, but also need to balance the health development of city.

Reference and Photo Source:

Wong, 2015. Hong Kong government housing plans may intensify 'heat island' effect, warns academic, SCMP, Jan 23,

Available at <http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1689474/hong-kong-government-housing-plans-may-intensify-heat-island-effect?page=all> Accessed: March 13, 2016].

Hk Gov, 2014. LCQ12: Proposal of rezoning a "Green Belt" site in Tai Wo Ping. Available at: <http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201503/18/P201503180432.htm> [Accessed: March 13, 2016].