The Walled City Where Sunlight Couldn't Reach

The Walled City Where Sunlight Couldn't Reach
from io9.com

A dystopian megacity, in which buildings merge together to become a single solid block, is the stuff of science fiction — but it already happened, in Hong Kong. The Kowloon Walled City was packed so tightly, it became an arcology.

Kowloon Walled City arose out of a weird circumstance in the treaty between the Brits and the Chinese that created Hong Kong. China gave the New Territories to the Brits in 1898 but excluded the Walled City, which the Chinese wanted to be able to use as an outpost. The Walled City developed a kind of status as a no-man's land — but it was really only after the Japanese surrendered after World War II that the Walled City became totally ungoverned, with neither the Chinese nor the British exercising control.