Award-winning writer Vince Beiser is the author of The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization.
Plagued by a shortage of land on which to house its swelling population, Hong Kong has come up with a simple-sounding solution: make more! That's the central idea behind "Lantau Tomorrow," a plan to build 1,700 hectares (17 sq. kilometers) of artificial land with housing for up to one million people in the ocean waters off of Lantau.