It is well known that Hong Kong has a housing problem.

With the current price-to-income ratio (a basic affordability measure for housing, where the median familial income is compared to property prices in the area) of 17.3 times, Hong Kong flats are the least affordable in the world.

A BBC documentary uploaded on Sept. 2017 told the story of what it is like to live in one of the world's most densely-populated and expensive city.

Alan, for example, is a dishwasher in Hong Kong.

He pays £180 (about S$323) a month to live in a cubicle no bigger than the size of your average furniture - a cupboard, for example. Or a bed.

There are 11 of such cubicles in the corridor alone.

All his possessions are stowed in the same space, and Alan eats out everyday because there is no kitchen in the apartment, shared or otherwise.

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To rent a room of his own in the same area, he would have to pay nearly three times as much, which would amount to roughly S$967.

Over 200,000 people live like him.

Another two-bedroom unit houses a family and four other relatives under its roof. They buy futuristic-looking bed pods to segregate and maximise the space, and it still looks pretty decent (compared to Alan's space, anyway).

One of the reasons for this phenomenom is the lack of land for housing:

• In Hong Kong, only 24 per cent of the land has been developed and, of this developed land, a mere 7 per cent has been used for housing. Country parks and nature reserves account for 40 per cent of Hong Kong’s land;
• By contrast, 14 per cent of the land in Singapore is used for housing, with only 9 per cent set aside for parks and nature reserves.

Watch the original clip here:

All images from screenshot from video.