I think the HKSAR government royally screwed up the housing policy and missed opportunity to fix it. If you're going to be authoritarian then at least be Singapore's Lee and give people tangible benefits like affordable housing. Now Carrie Lam is scrambling to push assumption (eminent domain) plans to buy rural land for housing development for $7.7 million USD/acre (assuming my calculation is correct) when the land is worth >$11 million/acre, so it's an uphill battle against the landowners. If they had started acquiring land to build public housing 20 years ago instead of lifting rent control and hand development to the tycoons, they would not be in the pits today.
The average price of a home in HK today is $1.2 million. Consider the millions of people who lives in cramped conditions facing unaffordable housing, uncertainty in HK's political future, and knowing that HK is dependent on China for groceries and utilities -- they have no choice in this. If HK declares independence and China cuts water and power, the HK government will fall within weeks. What you see with the protesters today is years of frustration boiling over, knowing that there is no easy solution they want to humiliate the HKSAR government instead.
In the current economic competition between US and China, both countries appear to be throwing HK under the bus. Beijing wants to elevate regional economic plan "Greater Bay Area" at expense of reducing HK's prominence. Washington wants to remove HK's trade status under 1992 US-HK Policy Act so they can impose punitive tariffs on Chinese goods and services flowing through HK. I tell my wife's cousins in HK that they should consider moving to Taiwan or Singapore. In TW you can buy a 1,000 sq ft, 3 bed 2 bath flat for $200K, 1/6 the price of an average home in HK. If they take their savings from HK and move to TW they can live a more comfortable life and request to transfer their (airline) job to TW. The pay is lower but quality of life better.