City tour in Sha Tin | Walking in the first generation new town of Hong Kong；漫步沙田－香港第一代新市鎮

Probably the ‘best’ or people’s favorite new town in Hong Kong, Sha Tin has been a model to showcase the civic pride and the success story of Hong Kong’s new town programme since its initiation in 1973. The Programme was to accommodate about 1.8 million people in Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun - which are Hong Kong’s first generation of new towns. Following the success of the programme, another six new towns have been developed which made up a total of nine new towns of 3 generations in the city.

Sha Tin, which means “sandy field” in Chinese, was an estuary and a fluvial valley surrounded by steep mountains. Given its proximity to the built-up area in Kowloon Peninsula and the geographical features, Sha Tin was one of the first groups of new towns, which was planned to create “a socially balanced and vigorous self-contained community”; “a community providing new opportunities and freedom of choice for residents in the location, type and standard of housing, shopping, employment and recreation”; “a town providing ease, safety and convenience for the movement of people throughout the town”, “ an attractive and convenient city appropriate to the district.”

After 50 years of development, the town has become a district of near 245,500 domestic households making up a total of 684,300 population. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sha Tin, the video will show the public housing estates, civic centre, private residential development, town centre and industrial estates in the town.

Timecode
0:00 Intro
0:25 Background
1:09 Public Housing (I)
3:47 Shing Mun River
6:26 Civic Centre
8:40 Town Centre
10:18 Industrial Estate
12:12 Public Housing (II)
14:09 Wo Che-Leuk Yuen-Shatin Elevated Walkway
18:33 Private Residential Development
20:18 Public Housing (III)