This recent NY Times article -- which makes the case that the current protests in Hong Kong are at least partially a result of inequality -- has a pair of interesting diagrams that speak to the city's tight housing market.

The first compares average living space per person in Hong Kong to Paris and New York City. New York City appears palatial compared to the illegally subdivided apartments that are discussed in the article.

The second looks at housing affordability as a multiple of median household income. Hong Kong is over 20x. I am curious what median incomes were used for each of the cities. A small denominator makes the multiples look worse.

In this chart, New York also includes the entire metropolitan area, which would help to improve its affordability ranking. So one could argue that this isn't really a fair comparison.

At the same time, none of this changes the fact that Hong Kong has some of, if not, the most expensive housing in the world.

Images: NY Times