Urban planning is not only about planning the city for people today but also planning decades of year ahead for next generations. Growing complexity and dynamics of the urban system make planning, decision-making and problem-solving to be more challenging. In order to achieve sustainable development, the notion of creative city is aroused in academic field and also advocated by many policymakers recently. Creative city notion suddenly becomes the panacea for many urban problems such as revitalizing dilapidated old urban area, enhancing the competitiveness of the city in the global economy, and boosting local employment rate, etc. However, among the polemical meditations on the creative cities notion, there is insufficient study on what vital preconditions are for creativity to be emerged in the metropolis, what creative activities are generated and how actors are interrelated with each other and with the environment regarding social, economic and physical dimensions. This dissertation proposes the “creative ecology” framework for analyzing and contextualizing the interrelationship and dynamics of stakeholders in the “creative ecology” and with the surrounding environments. An empirical study which applies the framework to a local district of Hong Kong, Yau Ma Tei, is conducted. The study tries to trace out the interrelationships of local creativity scene to the environments, and the dynamics within the ecology supported by the comprehensive study on the empirical setting from the perspective of Hong Kong to local district like Yau Ma Tei, and in-depth face-to-face interviews with key stakeholders. The analysis shows, in particular, how the “creative ecology” rooted in a local district operates and how a balanced “creative ecology” can be achieved in relation to the sustainable urban development. The recommendation is concerned passim with cultural policy and urban planning issues. The dissertation is concluded by summarizing the concept of “creative ecology” and highlighting its nature of continuous evolution, as well as addressing the main contemporary challenges while Hong Kong is in the transition process to be a more creative place. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Cultural and creative industries are often considered as one of the latest knowledge-based economy that prevailed around the world. Globalization makes the concept of cultural and creativity spread all over the world. The rise of the creative class, which has permanently transformed our economy and society, has rapidly transformed the world (Florida, 2002). Florida has suggested the creative classes have become more pronounced in recent decades and people around the world start to live differently, pursuing a new stage of lifestyles (Florida, 2002). In Hong Kong, cultural and creative industry has only been considered in the Policy Address in 2009, which has become as one of the six new pillars industry in Hong Kong. The transformation of the economic and industrial structure in Hong Kong has injected new value-added elements in economic development. How could Hong Kong react to this change? Currently, the territory does not even have policies that promoted cultural and creative industry. Cultural and creative industries are not greatly promoted. Different artists joined together and formed different artists organization in order to protect their own value and promote the concept of cultural and arts among citizens. In this dissertation, the clustering of cultural and creative industry in Hong Kong will be discussed. Different concepts and theories about the shaping of a cultural city will be analysed. Locational factors that lead to the clustering of cultural and creative industry in Hong Kong will be examined. A local case study – Fo Tan – will be examined by all the theories and concepts regarding to this clustering effect of cultural and creative industry. Fo Tan is one of the most significant industrial areas with most cultural and creative industries in Hong Kong. Different locational factors will be examined and see if they could be fitted into the local context. Moreover, the institutional setting of cultural and creative industry and urban planning system will be analysed and see if there are any deficiencies. With all the above mentioned, this dissertation hopes to see if government policies could help the development of cultural and creative industries and if different sectors in cultural and creative industries could co-exist in Fo Tan. Looking into the future, we would like to see what the Government or other private sector could do in order to help consolidate the cluster of cultural and creative industry in Fo Tan. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Adaptive reuse of industrial buildings into creative spaces has recently sparked global (Mommaas, 2000, 2004; Daniels, Ho, and Hutton, 2012)and local interests (Leung, 2010; Kong, 2012). The clustering effects of creative spaces have also inspired extensive research on how creative spaces could contribute to urban development and in particular economic growth (Pratt, Andy C., 2004; Evans, 2009; Mommaas, 2009). This dissertation critically reviews existing literature and examines the hypothesis with a comparative study of the Fotanian Artist Village (Fotanian) and Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC), which represent two distinctive development trajectories namely organic and planned creative spaces in Hong Kong. It is argued that the development of creative spaces in industrial buildings is strongly correlated to the intention of the public sector to promote creative economies, as well as market assumptions in dealing with obsolescence in urban environment. Both are governed by the concept of neoliberalism, which advocates utilization of land resources based on exchange value rather than use value, and the use of creative spaces as urban development tools. Thus, developing creative spaces in obsolete places through adaptive reuse would restrain the organic growth of creative spaces, or result in its commodification and institutionalization. The hidden neoliberal agenda has also led to the misconception that creative spaces should be assessed for its efficiency and effectiveness as a cluster based on the agglomeration effect of industrial cluster in traditional sense. Fotanian and JCCAC are selected to test against their success performances based on the cluster theory. The two cases are compared to examine whether the planned is less successful than the organic as suggested by the literature. Findings suggest that neither one of them entirely fulfills all the conditions of creative cluster identified in the literature for a successful creative space. Indeed the clustering effect is an inconclusive, if not misleading, criterion of successful creative spaces, given that the development of creative spaces in cities might bring a variety of benefits. Studies have shown that the adaptive reuse of obsolete places might pose potential threats to creative spaces. It is argued that the success of organic and planned creative spaces can only be possible in the long term when breeding and sustaining factors are introduced. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning