A proposal by Dutch designers, NL architects, could result in the construction of a far from ordinary bridge roadway connecting Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland, which would include artificial islands serving as car parks and bus stations.

Under the proposal, a “flipper” would be incorporated along the connecting roadway, allowing Hong Kong motorists – who drive on the left – to switch safely and effortlessly to the right, the side Chinese drivers use, and vice versa.

Talking of mega cities and mega regions, Thomas Birke has created a photo series “On Tokyo – the future of urban living”, which explores the human footprint on the urban environment, and also includes photos of Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The city resembles a jungle in principle. There is the shrub layer, consisting of millions of 1-3 story buildings, then there is the canopy made of 4-12 story buildings and the emergent layer, towering high above the rest, represented by skyscrapers.

Giant, or mega, cities situated in the same region, such as Hong Kong, Shenhzen, and Guangzhou, are gradually merging as their size increases, and coalescing into a mega region, or a single “endless city” entity:

The phenomenon of the so-called “endless city” could be one of the most significant developments – and problems – in the way people live and economies grow in the next 50 years, says UN-Habitat, the agency for human settlements, which identifies the trend of developing mega-regions in its biannual State of World Cities report. The largest of these, says the report – launched today at the World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro – is the Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region in China, home to about 120 million people. Other mega-regions have formed in Japan and Brazil and are developing in India, west Africa and elsewhere.

The four-day long Chinese New Year holiday in Hong Kong – coming up this weekend by the way – is an opportunity for local film-makers to put their work in front of audiences, as cinemas take a short break from screening Hollywood, and other overseas, produced movies.

While for most of the year, Hollywood films dominate box office takings here, the New Year gives local filmmakers a chance to fill their coffers by producing very local productions – that are for the most part entirely uplifting – as the city basically shuts down for the four-day holiday from February 13.

Washington based think tank The Heritage Foundation places Australia in third spot, New Zealand fourth, and the US at number eight.

Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself.

A before and after photo series showing the transformation of Hong Kong Island… from having many high rise buildings, to having even more high rise buildings.

This is amazing, a three dimensional pixel-crafted map of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong finds itself in a unique position in terms of Chinese politics:

The greatest frustration of post-handover Hong Kong is perhaps its blocked political aspirations. The richest place in China, it is also one where people can openly talk politics, rally against the government and choose a legislature in multiparty elections. This week it turned away at least one 1989-generation student leader, but let another enter the territory. In its bookshops the just-published memoirs of the late Zhao Ziyang, a former head of the Communist Party who opposed the Tiananmen crackdown, are flying off the shelves. In China the book is banned.

The boutique W Hotel group pull out all the stops when it comes to the interior design of their hotels as the opulence of the W New York demonstrates.

Also check out some shots of the W Hong Kong… “enough to turn a short stay in long one” as they say.

A night in Hong Kong: an awesome animation by Benny Wong made up of hundreds of black and white, and colour photos, set to Miro’s track “Holding On”.

Damn I miss working with Premiere!