The Changing Planning Concept of Postwar Hong Kong: Contract, Welfare and Space

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Hong Kong demonstrates a cellular urban organization while accommodating intensive economic activities. This cellular organization has its origin in the New Town Movement in post-war Europe. In the post-war era, the planning practice of Hong Kong, as a response to a series of urban crises, transformed the European new town ideal to the Asian vertical "Garden City." This paper takes its point of departure from the reflection on the relationship between planning regulation and planning vision. It revisits the "welfare state" tradition behind the cityscape of Hong Kong and concludes that this "collectivism" tradition was somehow overlooked in the urban design code making in Mainland cities.