By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-12-21 01:34:55 | Updated at 2024-12-21 04:18:48
2 hours ago
For anyone arriving into Hong Kong before the summer of 1998, the Kai Tak airport was a taster of “Asia’s world city” before you had even touched down.
While it might have been one of the most challenging landings in the world for pilots, it gave passengers a close-up of Kowloon City in all its glory, from washing hanging out of windows to residents eating their dinner. It provided a sense of the hustle and bustle that was to come from one of the fastest-moving cities in the world.
The airport’s closure in July 1998 removed not only a little piece of modern Asian life but the sense of purpose of a whole neighbourhood. The area had served the baggage handlers, retail workers, chefs and cabin crew who kept Kai Tak running.
March 2025 will see this storied Hong Kong neighbourhood reinvigorated with the opening of the Kai Tak Sports Park. The 28-hectare site promises to be more than just a new home for the annual Hong Kong Sevens; it will bring year-round opportunity to the Kai Tak community.
In addition to being Hong Kong’s largest sports venue when it is completed, Kai Tak Sports Park will follow in a long line of major infrastructure projects which have created stimulus for local economies. At the top of that list is London Stadium in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. From its earliest moments, the design of the stadium focused predominantly on what would happen after the 2012 Games finished.
Stratford was one of London’s poorest areas. It suffered rapid deindustrialisation in the 20th century which left it with tens of thousands of people and few jobs. The site chosen for the park was a wasteland between two polluted waterways which had become a dumping ground.
