Apparently not content to let the land between Hong Kong and Shenzhen continue to lay fallow, government-connected planners have issued a new report suggesting the two cities be combined into a metropolis of 20 million people. From the BBC:
Only then can Hong Kong be one of the world’s great cities, argues a research report by the government-linked Bauhinia Foundation.
“It is not only merging, it is really creating a metropolis between Hong Kong and Shenzhen,” Anthony Wu, director of the Bauhinia Foundation, said. “If you look at the long term competitiveness of Hong Kong, Hong Kong has only got seven million people, and… Shenzhen has 13 million people. You need to merge the two to create a bigger metropolis to take advantage of China and the world.” [Full Text]
Download an Executive Summary (PDF) of the report here.