Heritage conservation has become the hot issue since the well known public participated protection movement of Star Ferry Pier and Queen Pier. It made her to rethink her planning strategy related to heritage conservation issue. In 2007, the government announced the public participated heritage revitalization scheme. It allow public to participate into the revitalization program of the enlisted building heritage. In view of such change, this dissertation aimed to evaluate whether the revitalization scheme before and after 2007 is part of town planning strategy or just a compromise to the planning aspect. By the comparison of the revitalization projects of Wancahi Blue House Cluster, Tsim Sha Tsui Former Police Headquarter and Kom Tong Hall, the new town planning strategy could be better illustrated. Lastly, the paper would describe the British experience of building heritage regeneration. It set a good example for the Hong Kong Government in the improvement of town planning and heritage conservation issue. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The history of public housing in Macau started in 1928. Yet, the performance level of the public housing sector is relatively lower compared to the nearby cities, whereas their public housing sectors were commenced at a later stage. The return of sovereignty of Macau in 1999 becomes the major turning point of the city. Since then, the economic landscape of the city has dramatically changed by the liberalization of the gaming industry in 2002. The vibrant economy has directly led to an upsurge of the real estate market, resulting an unaffordable private housing market. In addition, the city has also initiated the demand of more public housing by the local residents. With the sudden increase in the demand of more public housing units, the government has decided to launch the “19,000 Public Housing Units” Programme. With this phenomenon recently occurred in Macau, it will be worth visiting the current performance level of the public housing sector in Macau; aiming to find out if the public housing sector has met the expectations of different stakeholders, with quantity, quality and affordability as the assessment criteria. Negative results have been shown while assessing the criteria of quantity and quality and a positive result has been reflected for affordability. After knowing the weaknesses of the public housing sector, it will be worth looking into the possible factors influencing its performance with land supply and urban planning as the critical components. Recommendations to improve the performance of the public housing sector through better land and planning policies have been established to conclude this dissertation. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

In the context of global competition, Hong Kong has positioned her social and urban infrastructure to foster the advanced service sector activities of urban tourism. The success of the urban area as a place making for tourism is the embedding of sustainable and innovative principles in the planning process and the implementation of the stakeholders and travelers aspirations. A holistic and adaptive public transport planning and alternative transport modes are one of the key issue that contribute to the success of urban tourism development now and the future. For the advancement of travel information technology and infrastructure of urban tourism, it enables more individual travelers rather than conventional group-tour visit to Hong Kong. Those individual travelers are mostly in the form of slow travel where one visits to destinations more slowly overland, stay longer and travel less with the importance of travel experience to a destination engagement with slow modes of transport. This morphology from mass and efficient tourism to newer form of individual and experienced tourism takes forward the notion of queries and justifications of conventional fast and efficient transport planning and modal choice could provide tourist a real understanding of localities of urban culture and detail settings. This dissertation aiming to examine the concept and theory of slow travel in associate with slow mode of transportation application and the potential planning recommendation for urban tourism in Hong Kong. The objective of this research is to see how slow travel theories that had been popularized in overseas countries could be applied in Hong Kong with the support of public transport service and planning enhancement. In this research, the interdisciplinary research to examine of the problem is form a multi-disciplinary approach while the solution and recommendation is form a management perspective –transport and urban planning / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

With the rise of cities as geographical units, there have been a growing number of municipal partnerships and networks. Government-led intercity cooperation at regional scale—regional city-to-city (C2C) cooperation booms in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region in the last two decades. Urban competitiveness is a concept tied to intercity competition that decides the relative position of cities in urban ranking. In regional C2C cooperation, urban competitiveness serves as the asset of partner-cities and usually as one of the primary targets of the cooperation. However, there is a general lack of studies on the influence of urban competitiveness on regional C2C cooperation. The introduction of the perspective of urban competitiveness is an approach of developing a comprehensive framework connecting factors of regional C2C cooperation. The objective of this research is to analyze the influence of urban competitiveness on regional C2C cooperation in China’s local context. In this study, the added value of regional C2C cooperation is divided into added value of urban competitiveness and political added value brought by intervention from upper-level governments. Three typology of C2C cooperation (i.e. hybrid, hierarchical and spontaneous) have been identified. Three cases in the YRD region including the Jiangyin-Jingjiang Industrial Park of Jiangsu Province, Suzhou-Suqian Industrial Park, and Shanghai Caohejing Hi-Tech Park Haining Sub-park are selected for case studies accordingly. This study indicates that urban competitiveness and government intervention are crucial to regional C2C cooperation. Urban competitiveness is essential in regional C2C partnership maintenance, while intervention from upper-level governments is effective and efficient in strategy formulation and partner selection. The measurement of urban competitiveness in the YRD region in 2002, 2005, and 2008 indicates the partner-city with relatively larger urban competitiveness is more likely to assume a leading role in the C2C partnership. Noticeably, it is found that the intervention from the provincial government tends to consolidate such impact. The measurement also reveals that urban competitiveness in the YRD region is transforming from an investment-driven stage to an innovation- and human capital-driven stage. Noticeably, the increasing weighting of basic factors in the building of urban competitiveness found in the YRD region is hard to be explained by the mainstream urban competitive advantage theories. Therefore, a localization of the theories is advocated by this research. Imprints of China’s local context transpire in the three cases, including economic decentralization and simultaneous political centralization. The role of provincial government is weakened in China’s political restructuring. However, revealed by the case studies, intervention from provincial government to regional C2C cooperation is still observed to be effective in terms of strategy formulation and negotiation. With the rise of public-private partnership focusing on investment and economic growth, as well as strong government intervention in regional C2C cooperation, the three cases reflect China’s urban entrepreneurialism. Furthermore, a recent shift in China’s urban entrepreneurialism has been found in the region, which is the increasing emphasis on environmental care for sustainable development. This recent shift accords with the global movement toward environmentalism for sustainable development. The underlying logic and reasons are different from those in the West, resting upon the different nature of involvement and governing process. The findings of this research contribute to a better understanding of the relations between urban competitiveness and regional C2C cooperation in China’s local context and the role of governments. As one of the most developed regions in China, the experiences in the YRD region can shed light on the development of other developing areas. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Hong Kong has long been regarded as a global city and the regional service provider in the Greater Pearl River Delta (GPRD) region, with the provision of an opened and accountable economic and legal system, support of high-quality infrastructure and policies, and being the gateway to enter the Chinese market. This can be reflected by its consistently high score in different global competitiveness ranking index. A lot of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) are attracted by this reputable global city development of the city, establishing their headquarters and other tertiary services in Hong Kong. Other cities in the GPRD region tend to specialize in factory production with their comparative advantage in lower production cost in terms of labour, looser regulations and industrial agglomeration. The functional division in the GPRD region is well defined spatially which can be explained by the traditional "Front office, back factory" model. However, this settings has been changing as many PRD cities like Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Zhuhai have transformed their city's vision towards a global city currently. These cities have initiated economic restructuring and industrial upgrading towards modern servicing industries, and gradually force out the original factories and production base to less developed PRD cities or other locations beyond the GPRD region. New incentives are offered by the central and municipal government in attracting TNCs to invest in high value-added producer services, establishing Research and Development (R&D) base and headquarters in these PRD cities under urban entrepreneurialism. The dominant role of Hong Kong as a global city and regional service provider is challenged under rapid inter-city competition with these cities. This results in a new spatial dynamics and functional specialization settings for the GPRD region that cannot be explained by the traditional model. This study will examine the existing and potential role of global city development in Hong Kong and other PRD cities with reference to the investment choices of TNCs in the GPRD region. Through a comparative analysis with Guangzhou, the major strengths, weaknesses, and other factors required for global city development of Hong Kong and PRD cities will be identified. In addition, the latest locational settings of different functions will be explored in the case study analysis of TNCs in modern servicing and financing industry, manufacturing industry, and information and high-tech industry. The analysis will assist in identifying potential development opportunities, weaknesses of Hong Kong and PRD cities in attracting further investments from TNCs. Recommendations will be offered at the end of the study to enhance the overall competitiveness of Hong Kong and the GPRD region, through "co-opetition" incentives, fostering the development of GPRD mega-city region under the network city concept, and formulating an updated version of "Front office, back factory" model. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture