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Personal safety has little to do with relative crime rates. Traffic accidents, are, by far, the biggest factor in urban safety, even in high crime jurisdictions.
HK has extremely high rates of traffic deaths/injuries compared to Western cities, so, to me, would not be particularly safe for a first world city, even if crime rate is 0.
Road traffic fatality rate in different cities (fatalities per 1,000,000 population)
Los Angeles 59
Chicago 48
Seoul 39
New York 35
Taipei 31
Melbourne 23
Toronto 23
London 15
Hong Kong 14
Tokyo 13
Stockholm 9
How do you interpret the first paragraph of the article?
"Just how bad is New York City's second-apartment-as-foreign-tax-shelter problem? The New York Times looked at the number of Midtown apartment owners who use the City's resident-only 17.5% tax abatement, and found that 57% percent of the units from East 57th Street to East 59th between Park and Fifth Avenue are empty for at least 10 months out of the year. From East 59th to East 63rd, 628 out of 1,261 homes are vacant most of the time, and at the Trump Tower on 721 Fifth Avenue, less than half of the units are occupied by New Yorkers."
In a lot of cities these types of apartments are called "pied-Ã -terre" -- because they're just a place that the owner uses as a home-base when they visit the city. They're not a principal residence. A "pied-Ã -terre" is useful for business travellers who are in the city frequently but who'd rather not live at hotels. Some wealthy people have a number of homes in different countries, and this is just one type of secondary residence. The question is really, why is the tax regime set up the way it is for these types of properties?
There you go. Hong Kong actually has one of the lowest traffic death rate in the world, while America is by far the worst amongst developed countries.
Unless you're just gonna go on and on about how these statistics are rigged and how America doesn't have traffic fatalities at all...
The "source" is China. So it's not a source.
In the real world, traffic deaths in Asia are much higher than in the West.
And there is no way China could even assemble such stats. In the U.S. there are no traffic fatality/injury stats by municipality. They are collected by the federal govt. at the state level only. So the "data" is completely fabricated.
In a lot of cities these types of apartments are called "pied-Ã -terre" -- because they're just a place that the owner uses as a home-base when they visit the city. They're not a principal residence. A "pied-Ã -terre" is useful for business travellers who are in the city frequently but who'd rather not live at hotels. Some wealthy people have a number of homes in different countries, and this is just one type of secondary residence. The question is really, why is the tax regime set up the way it is for these types of properties?
He is confusing a million different things. And his own link covers like three buildings, right in the middle of midtown, which have nothing to do with the housing situation in NYC overall.
It would be like me choosing one building in Switzerland, with only Japanese nationals living there, and then claim "Switzerland is now 100% Japanese".
The fact is that there are very few "empty apartments" in NYC, especially in newer construction housing. NYC has extremely high property taxes, and extremely high monthly maintenance fees, and doesn't make much sense to hide money in NYC real estate unless you plan on using the apartment.
And around 80% of ownership housing in NYC is co-op, not condos. Co-ops don't allow buyers who won't live there at least part-time.
Also, the U.S., unlike other countries, taxes foreign nationals with U.S. holdings. So foreigners will U.S. real estate holdings usually have a reason to own the real estate. They're spending time there, or renting it out.
Other places, like London, Monaco, make more sense to hide money, which is why there are more empty apartment districts in those places.
In the real world, traffic deaths in Asia are much higher than in the West.
And there is no way China could even assemble such stats. In the U.S. there are no traffic fatality/injury stats by municipality. They are collected by the federal govt. at the state level only. So the "data" is completely fabricated.
The source is the HK government, which ranks quite well in terms of not being corrupt.
Again, HK is not like China or Southeast Asian countries when it comes to traffic. Just admit that you have no idea about traffic in HK...
In any case, it didn't take me long to find official stats for US cities by just googling them... And yes, this data was provided by government agencies.
In the real world, traffic deaths in Asia are much higher than in the West.
And there is no way China could even assemble such stats. In the U.S. there are no traffic fatality/injury stats by municipality. They are collected by the federal govt. at the state level only. So the "data" is completely fabricated.
As expected from you. You and your usual America can do no wrong bs lol. It's pretty pathetic tbqh.
Yeah, that pretty much reflects my experiences with HK traffic. Certainly not that wild and pretty civilised.
That was my experience, too. 95% of people wair for the light to turn before crossing, drivers slow down or stop for pedestrian traffic even if they don't have to, etc. A nice contrast to LA (still a city I love), where if you cross against a light, chances are good someone will speed up to freak you out and "teach you a lesson." I rode a bicycle most of the time to beat traffic and at least a couple times a week I'd have someone try to knock me off my bike or curb me because I was a cyclist and they thought that my ability to sail through standstill traffic was an affront to them.
I think that the increased number of accidents is probably more a function of density than anything else, not the culture.
In any case, if someone doesn't like HK or any other given place, I don't understand why they can't just say "I don't like it" and have to extrapolate these things into much bigger problems than they are.
It has always been appealing to me. Its climate would be a big con though.
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