Shek Kip Mei

Shek Kip Mei
Shek Kip Mei in 2009
Chinese	石硤尾
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Shíxiáwěi IPA [ʂɻ̩̌ɕjǎwèi] Yue: Cantonese IPA [sɛ̀ːkkɪ̄pme̬i] Jyutping sek6 gip3 mei5

Shek Kip Mei (Chinese: 石硤尾), originally known as Shek Kap Mei (Chinese: 石夾尾), is an area in New Kowloon, to the northeast of the Kowloon Peninsula of Hong Kong. It borders Sham Shui Po and Kowloon Tong.

A major fire on 25 December 1953, destroyed the Shek Kip Mei shantytown of immigrants from Mainland China that had fled to Hong Kong, leaving 53,000 people homeless.

After the fire, the governor Alexander Grantham launched a public housing programme to introduce the idea of "multi storey building" for the immigrant population living there. The standardised new structures offered fire- and flood-resistant construction to previously vulnerable hut dwellers. The programme involved demolishing the rest of the makeshift houses left untouched by the fire, and the construction of the Shek Kip Mei Low-cost Housing Estate in their stead. The apartments were small, only about 300 square feet (28 m²). Each unit could house five people, and each building had a capacity of 2,500 residents. The rent was HK$17 per square foot per month, while the rent for a commercial store downstairs was HK$100 per month. Foreign tourists visiting the apartment complexes referred to them as "prisons". Indeed, some scholars have argued that the government has been overstating the role of the fire in the history of public housing in Hong Kong.

At the north of Shek Kip Mei is Tai Wo Ping (大窩坪), along Beacon Hill. This was a cottage area (a type of resettlement accommodation) from the 1950s to 1970s, but it has been developed into a public housing estate, Chak On Estate (澤安邨), and two private housing estates, Beacon Heights (畢架山花園) and Dynasty Heights (帝景峰).