From Time Asia:

One hundred and sixty years of hauling landfill from mountainsides and construction dumps and shoveling it into the water has left Hong Kong with a harbor that, between the Central business district and Tsim Sha Tsui on the Kowloon side, is now just about 1 km wide”shorter than the span of New York’s George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River. Visitors to Hong Kong who arrive in town expecting an easily accessible, vibrant waterfront like the ones in Sydney or Baltimore are in for a rude surprise: most of Hong Kong’s shoreline is inaccessibly hidden behind skyscrapers, parking lots, utilities and highways…

But after years of despoiling its very name”Hong Kong means “fragrant harbor” in Chinese”things may finally be about to change. An unlikely coalition of environmental activists, business leaders and (this being Hong Kong) property developers is pushing for a rethink of how to make the harbor something more than an international embarrassment.