I'm happy for her, really I am. I spent a summer putzing around New York in 2008 while being "trained" as an analyst, and I've always wanted to live there: to ride my bike on the Brooklyn Bridge, to be at the center of the world, to feel the wind beneath my wings, etcetera etcetera. Sometimes, my vicarious excitement verges on jealousy--the pure, unadulterated, make-you-want-to-throw-a-tantrum-like-a-two-year-old kind. She's moving to New York, I'm moving back to Hong Kong, and I want her toy. So I've decided to channel those energies into something more constructive. The two images below show a map of Manhattan (outlined in blue) superimposed on top of Hong Kong:
Central Park alone would encompass the entirety of the Tsim Sha Tsui-Mong Kok urban corridor, or the Wan Chai-Sheung Wan core of Hong Kong island. Incredible.
How big is New York's transit system compared to Hong Kong's? The image below shows the two systems to scale, courtesy Neil Freeman:
Of course, New York's subway opened in 1904; Hong Kong's first line only opened in 1979. Only 24% of Hong Kong's land is developed, and its hilly terrain does not favor an extensive subway system (the pragmatic Brits bulldozed most of Manhattan island flat after taking over from the Dutch). Still, Hong Kong's system manages 1.3 billion annual passenger rides (#9 in the world) to New York's 1.6 billion (#6 in the world). Hong Kong's blue subway line, the "island line," is serviced by trains every two minutes. What Hong Kong lacks in scale, it compensates for with density.
The shortest,"great circle" distance (8072 miles) between Hong Kong and New York, courtesy great circle mapper:
Finally, thousands of photographs stitched together to create Manhattan in motion:
