Malthus would laugh at China

Hong Kong was extraordinarily dense. The tall apartment buildings invariably hugged close to one another, and to the mountains on one side and the sea on the other. That was as much a function of the geography, which limited the proportion of the land which could be built on, as of high population density.
Perhaps that also helps to explain why the city didn't really feel very crowded, especially compared to Shanghai or Guangzhou. There weren't crushing crowds on the streets or on the metro or on the busses; the train stations and bus stops weren't overflowing with human traffic; the restaurants and shops weren't being overwhelmed by hordes of customers.

Because it was so much less crowded, everything felt in control and nice, instead of being messy, chaotic and harried as mainland China tends to be. Even though a lot of the infrastructure and systems were actually pretty similar in design in both places. The bus terminals for instance. They're essentially the same design, but the ones in Shanghai always seem to on the brink of chaotic breakdown thanks to the crowds of commuters, whereas the ones in Hong Kong are paragons of neat order.

Moral of the story: overpopulation makes everything hellishly harder. Cue Malthus.