Kowloon Walled City is an urban anomaly that came into being after World War II, when refugees flooded to the area. Neither England nor China wanted to deal with the ungoverned, growing community. In the following years, 300 towers rose on the site and very quickly became interconnected into a dense infrastructure.
This city was basically constructed by residents and carpenters with no involvement from architects or city planners. Each resident had about 40 square feet to live in.Residents collected water from wells and hauled trash onto the roofs. Despite these conditions, the citizens co-operated well with each other and schools, shops, businesses and unlicensed medical practitioners flourished.
Also known as the city of anarchy or the City of Darkness, crime was rampant, and for a short time—between 1960 and 1970—the Triads controlled the city. Because the residents created their own rules for survival, police refused to go there!An ex-citizen remembers: "In the Walled City, the sunshine always followed the rain."
In the 1980's the poor living conditions spurred officials to relocate residents, and a few years later the city was completely abandoned. In 1993 the City of Darkness was razed to the ground and a park was built in it's place.
