The Kowloon Walled City: A Complexity Science Perspective

The Kowloon Walled City: A Complexity Science Perspective

The first quarter of 1994 saw the final demolition and commissioning of Hong Kong's City of Darkness, also known as HK's Dirty Little Secret—a historical folly and an anomaly of the past. This is the story of the Kowloon Walled City and its parallels with the tenets of complexity science.

Imperial Britain defeated Imperial China in the First Opium War in 1842. As part of an agreement, China ceded the island of Hong Kong to the British. The then emperor from the Song Dynasty commissioned the building of a small fort in Kowloon to house a garrison assigned to watch the activities of the British. Later, after facing another defeat in the Second Opium War, China ceded areas that were called the New Territories, making the Kowloon Walled City (KWC) an island of China in the sea of the British. Later, the British orchestrated the eviction of the small Chinese armed forces residing in the city, swiftly transforming KWC into a "de jure" enclave - a legally recognized place where the law or government does not exist in reality. Due to its unique nature, KWC served as a safe haven for Chinese refugees during the Cultural Revolution in China during the 1960s, and later became a haven for anyone seeking to escape from government control or live off the grid. Over time, KWC became a symbol of urban complexity, human resilience, societal decay, and the triumph of man against unprecedented odds. From its humble beginnings as a walled fort, which the Japanese stripped of its walls during World War II, KWC has evolved into a massive megastructure. KWC became a giant megastructure that was part architecture and part a living organism characterized by its unique haphazard buildings, informal governance, and complex social structures. Because both the Chinese and the British (who administered the rest of Hong Kong) did not want to undertake the administration of KWC, it remained largely autonomous, lawless, and free from any kind of governmental intervention. This lack of governance led to the development of a complex, chaotic, yet vibrant community within the KWC, where the residents managed practically everything on their own, guided only by their individual needs or those of the community. By the time of its demolition, the KWC had become the world's most densely populated city, housing upwards of 50,000 people within a mere 6.5-acre land parcel.

This essay focuses on analyzing the life within the KWC through the lens of complexity science. For those who are unfamiliar with complexity science, here's a brief introduction. Complexity science is the study of complex systems, where the interactions between various elements or components lead to behaviors or characteristics that are not predictable from the individual components alone. Complexity Science attempts to explain how order emerges from disorder, how complex systems manage to exist on the “edge of chaos," how they adapt to their environment, and how various interactions between their elements influence the overall dynamics of the system. Some key concepts of complex systems are emergence, self-organization, balance, networks, etc., all of which show up in the study of the KWC.

One of the principal traits of any complex system is the absence of any single authority or leader. In other words, no single unit or entity directs the functioning or activities of the complex system. Instead, all the elements of the system decentralize governance. Generally, the government or a government-appointed body manages any urban system, but the lack of government jurisdiction in the KWC led to the establishment of an informal system to oversee daily life. The residents came together to create mechanisms for mutual aid, facilitate resource sharing, settle conflicts, and so on, resulting in a completely decentralized informal system. Residents' interactions ensured the management of the entire enclave, even in the most basic manner. This type of decentralized governance between elements, which leads to some form of self-organization, bears a striking resemblance to any complex system in which order emerges from local interactions among agents within the system, without the need for central control. In the KWC, strong ties between residents resulted in a complex web of relationships that influenced every aspect of the entire enclave. The ability to create some kind of order amid chaos became the defining feature of the KWC. The city did not descend into anarchy or chaos, despite becoming a haven for vices. Instead, the healthy tension between the residents helped them to adapt to reality, follow simple rules, and thus ensure that the whole city continued to exist on the “edge of chaos” but not in chaos itself.

Another defining feature of complex systems is emergent behavior or unique characteristics that arise unexpectedly from system elements' interaction and feedback. Additionally, knowing the system's elements or components cannot predict this behavior or characteristic. Emergence can be observed in the KWC in terms of its architecture. The architecture in the KWC was in direct response to its context, as well as due to the lack of any formal urban planning. What started as a small fort became a towering megastructure as the influx of residents increased. Buildings to accommodate businesses and residences were built rapidly without any official plans, with their design and construction centered primarily on meeting the practical needs of the residents. These structures were tightly placed, reaching heights of 15 stories, creating a vertical cityscape that was designed to optimize the limited space and yet accommodate as much as possible. Every inch of available space was utilized, leading to intricate designs, multi-functional structures, and rhizomatic plumbing and electrical systems. The rooftops were converted into gardens; the front façade of the enclave housed shops up to two stories. The space between buildings was utilized to build stairways to enter or exit, and complicated alleyways existed that connected various parts of the megastructure both vertically and horizontally. Different parts of the city cater to different functions in the lines of emergence that arise due to a need to adapt or stabilize the system. These different parts performed various defined functions but collectively determined the overall functioning of the enclave, like any other complex system. These densely interconnected buildings created a labyrinthine environment that not only allowed connectivity but also fostered creativity and adaptability. They appeared chaotic but were highly functional and tailored to foster the survival of the overall city. The architecture of the KWC reflected the concept of emergence, where the collective design of the system is greater than the sum of its parts. Additionally, the KWC architecture also displayed another principle from Complexity Science: balance between order and randomness. The dynamic informal architecture balanced the integration of the city and the segregation of the function. Different areas emerged to cater to specific functions, but this segregation was not enough to create silos and hence rigidity. Hence, the right amount of order. Similarly, the interconnection of spaces promoted flexibility, but not so much that it led to collapse. Hence, the right amount of randomness. It was this intuitive balance that allowed the city to be resilient and adaptive as it evolved. Emergence and balance are two properties of a complex system that help it adapt to challenges and evolve in response to its environment, thus making it resilient and robust. These collective actions demonstrated how complex systems respond to disturbances by leveraging social cohesion and community strength. Resilience was also observed in the KWC as it faced common adversaries—lack of governance, lawlessness, lack of infrastructure, and limited resources. This resilience established a tight-knit social network that enabled the sharing of knowledge, resources, and coping strategies.

A dominant theme that emerges in the story of KWC is the strong ties among its residents. Many research studies have published interviews with residents who remember the KWC as one large family, alluding to the concept of deep relationships. Relationships are always explained as webs of interconnection, which brings up another parallel to complexity science, i.e., networks. Network theory examines the relationships and connections between entities in any network. Complex systems are often viewed as networks of interconnections; hence, network theory finds application in the study of complex systems. The residents of the KWC had developed a strong social network, and any new resident was quickly assimilated into it. In addition to this social network, KWC also boasted an equally strong and complex economic network of businesses and services that catered not only to the needs of the residents but also to those of parties outside the enclave. Devoid of any government regulations, taxes, and scrutiny, these businesses, albeit illegal as per law, provided goods and services at dirt cheap rates, which enabled brisk business and contributed to the economic resilience of the KWC. These types of social and economic networks facilitated communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and economic resilience, thus bolstering the overall stability of the enclave. But on a deeper level, they enabled the flow of information. Information is the foundation of any complex system, as it ensures that the system can learn, adapt, and evolve. This is because the more information is available, the less uncertain the randomness of the system's behavior will be. Thus, the flow of information through the complex system reduces predictability and promotes order. And it is the networks that become the carrier of information, thus becoming the principal agent that enables information exchange, which then enables innovation, emergence, adaptive behavior, and eventually order. Flexible, complex (multiple pathways), decentralized, yet tenacious networks are thus key to the success of complex systems, and that is the exact role the social and economic networks played in the sustenance of the KWC.

KWC’s story offers invaluable lessons in the resilience of man in face of poverty, informal and crammed living conditions, crime, and lack of resources or government support. And yet it is also the story of an amazing level of adaptability, tenacity, and human ingenuity. Exploring such cases brings to light the principles and strategies that complex systems employ to thrive by aiming for resilience, adaptability, and sustainability. KWC also demonstrates the importance of recognizing and valuing informal systems just because they do not tread the beaten path and therefore seem random. However, in reality, they utilize fundamental principles that arise directly from nature. Therefore, KWC serves as a powerful case study in complexity science as it illustrates all the classic concepts of complexity science playing out in the real world. Its unique social structure, order amidst chaos, architectural design, and decentralized governance all provide valuable insights into how complexity science pervades and seeps into our world. And therefore, in an increasingly complex world filled with multiple power centers, the internet, social media, digital technologies, AI, etc., the example of Kowloon Walled City provides so many bittersweet lessons that emphasize moving away from a reductionist approach that has served us well till now but not anymore. Instead, we must adopt the super intuitive ideas of complexity science, which bring us closer to dealing with the “complexities” of the current-age society.

This raw, gritty, urban anomaly has been sanitized, erased from this world, and now only exists in the minds of the people who experienced it.

Aerial View of Kowloon Walled City. Photographer: Ian Lambot