There are lots of things to like about Hong Kong, but I'd refrain from overindexing on them as a model to follow when a severe lack of available apartments, outrageous costs for the few going, and inhumanly cramped living conditions were a big contributing factor to the 2019–20 protests.
For the same reasons, I get really annoyed by seeing some urbanists wax nostalgic about Kowloon Walled City. Even if they're only being humorous about it, that nightmare was the exact kind of thing good urban development should seek to avoid.
You can have density and streamlined permitting processes without putting the school and dentist's office in the same rooms as the brothel and black market organ transplants or stuffing everyone in apartments the size of prison cells inside a giant fire hazard cube.
Doesnt seem like a good time. But it is funny to tell the NIMBYs you want it in brentwood or the sunset sometimes.
I say it half jokingly as a model for density in a constrained land area. The NorCal YIMBY joke is turn Marin County into hong kong. Idk how to solve hong kong. It's crazy dense, crazy expensive, seems mostly built out, and the mainland is right there.