Giving Compass' Take:

• As The Atlantic reports, a new 34-mile bridge linking mainland China, the colony of Macau, and Hong Kong has raised urgent questions about the sustainability of Hong Kong’s unique status and culture.

• How will this new connectivity affect the surrounding communities and cities? What does this access mean for the job market and other areas of social development in Asia?

• Here's more on the rise of philanthropy in China.

Lau Wing Yin has a curious weekend pastime. He slips through malls and stakes out bus depots on the northwest corner of Lantau, Hong Kong’s largest island. Armed with his mobile phone, he hunts for illegal tour guides, collecting photo evidence to turn over to police — what he believes is his part in curbing the sudden and swelling inflow of mainland-Chinese day-trippers here.

It was not always like this. Lantau was once a haven for pirates and, later, anti-Japanese fighters during World War II, but the island saw a surge of construction in the late 1990s as a new airport was developed. Even today, only around 45,000 people live in Tung Chung—a Lantau neighborhood near a bay that flows into the South China Sea—which remains relatively quiet compared with Hong Kong’s bustling, frenetic center. Marked by hills covered with thick vegetation and capped with meadows, the island is home to several popular hiking trails.

Then, seemingly overnight in Lau’s eyes, Tung Chung turned into a crowded extension of the mainland.

Read the full article on Hong Kong's reaction to its new accessibility by Timothy McLaughlin at The Atlantic.