The Executive Council has just given a green light to the construction of our high-speed railway amid a recent surge of objections. The plan still has to go through the Legislative Council next month to get the necessary funding.

The case for this project is simple: the mainland is building a national network of high-speed railways which will greatly enhance connectivity among major cities in the country, and Hong Kong just cannot afford to be left out of the game. Otherwise the result is certain marginalization. On the other hand, once plugged in, the rail links contribution to future development of the city will be huge. Hong Kong will be more in tune with the country's rapid growth.

The case against it is somewhat more complicated. There are the usual dissident politicians who will object to anything and want everything. On this issue, they are against the site chosen for the repair yard, and support villagers' demands for higher compensation, but at the same breath, they seem to want to scrap the entire project. They don't know what they are talking about, but we all know what they mean.

There is a much larger group of young people who on the face of it look and sound like the dissident politicians. We don't know what they are talking about, but if listened to carefully, an undertone of class-struggle can clearly be detected. What they really mean is, "I am not happy, because every benefit is likely go to the big real estate developers. I don't care if Hong Kong will become marginalized to the point of being an agricultural economy, because there is nothing in it for me in the present setting of 'collusion between government and business'."

The frustration among the younger generation is real and cannot be ignored. Our government withheld land sales for years pushing real estate prices to world records, while today even the middle-class is deprived the opportunity of buying their own flats and are forced to pay exorbitant rents for living quarters which can only be described as tiny by any standard. The Gini's Coefficient which measures the income disparity in a society has long been in the danger zone and is getting worse. If I were someone in Yau Ma Tei looking for a job while reading the much publicized story of the HK$500 million duplex, I would say, let's go to hell.

So far, I have to admit that the West Kowloon Station looks and smells like a re-run of the old real estate scam. It is now up to the government to prove otherwise to gain popular support for the whole project.

The author is a member of the Commission on Strategic Development

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(HK Edition 10/22/2009 page1)