published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / abstract / Architecture / Master / Master of Science in Interdisciplinary Design and Management

Thesis (M.Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-88). / What constitutes sustainable architecture? Clearly, this is a question very much in vogue nowadays, and contemporary responses have been framed for the most part by topics such as new building technologies, energy conservation, climatically and environmentally responsive design, recyclable materials, and so on. Though sustainable architecture must certainly be about many, if not all of these things, my thesis proposes a much more familiar architectural response. Namely, I argue that the design of spaces that facilitate and promote communities is not only a necessary condition for a sustainable architecture, it is the necessary pre-condition. How does an architecture facilitate and promote communities? I have chosen the problem of housing as the vehicle to answer this question, because I believe one's living arrangement ought to be a critical opportunity for community life. To take advantage of this opportunity, I have tried to provide for variety and flexibility in public spaces, because these contribute directly to the viability and longevity of any community. I have tried to think of ways that architecture can actually give people something to do, activities that can be shared, perhaps even by cross-sections of society that do not typically have much to do with one another, because such successful collaboration is essential for the vitality of any community. And I have tried to strike a realistic balance between the day-to-day demands of contemporary lifestyles and the long term goals for a globally sustainable environment, because communities can best be expected to thrive when the needs of both the present and future generations are met. / by Henry Chang. / M.Arch.

Announced few months before, a public housing estate in Hong Kong, Ming Wah Dai Ha, which is owned and managed by Hong Kong Housing Society which is planned, is to process redevelopment in the coming years (HKHS, 2011). The social voice nowadays are focusing on the land provided by the redevelopment project can be used as subsidized housing to fulfill the housing demand for better housing and home owning aspiration of the lower or middle income group. However, at the other side, development caused changes to the living of the residents there, and also the environment and social culture of that area. This discussion has drawn my attention that whether redevelopment of public housing estates in Hong Kong is a sustainable way of housing development or not. It is both important to meet the housing needs of the people and to preserve the environment. Land is scarce in the urban area of Hong Kong, we know that it need to put at top priority to fulfill the need of citizens who still on the waiting list or suffer for high housing costs. However, the role of housing management organizations and housing managers should have the responsibility on maintaining the quality of living environment. For the case of Ming Wah Dai Ha, many councilors from political parties request the government to redevelop to use the land for My Home Purchase Plan. The request reflects the subsidized public housing policy now cannot satisfy the need of citizen on their desire on home ownership or even harmonious living environment. The unfulfilled right could be the result of problems, such as affordability and long waiting time for subsidized housing. These housing problems show the deficiencies of the existing housing policies in Hong Kong. I think this is an interesting topic for us to review, evaluate and recommend, on the issues on balancing the need of subsidized housing by citizens and the impact of redevelopment on the society, for selecting the suitable way for sustainable housing development in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Redevelopment of aged PRH estates has been carried out for more than 40 years in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Housing Authority. After the completion of the Comprehensive Redevelopment Programme, the HA announced the Refined Policy on Redevelopment of Aged Public Rental Housing Estates in 2011 to continue its work on redevelopment. The Refined Policy on Redevelopment of Aged Public Rental Housing Estates shows the determination of the Hong Kong Housing Authority to improve its redevelopment policy as it has been pushed forward right after the completion of the previous programme. However, it has been criticized by tenants, public, District Councillors and Legislative Councillors for its inefficiency and ineffectiveness. In this dissertation, the deficiencies of the Refined Policy on Redevelopment of Aged Public Rental Housing Estates and the Pak Tin Estate Redevelopment Project, and successful elements of the Comprehensive Redevelopment Programme and the Lower Ngau Tau Kok Estate Redevelopment Project are assessed and examined. These assessment help to understand that problems of the current policy and project are caused by the setting and the implementation strategy of the Refined Policy on Redevelopment of Aged Public Rental Housing Estates. Recommendations have been proposed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Refined Policy on Redevelopment of Aged Public Rental Housing Estates and develop it into a systematic and people-oriented redevelopment policy. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

As the principal subsidized home ownership housing scheme in Beijing, the Economical and Suitable Housing Scheme (ESHS) has gone through several different stages in the past three decades. Following the newly developed housing policy framework in 2007, ESHS was endowed with the objective of providing affordable home ownership to low-income urban residents. Despite the rich literature on ESHS in China, relatively little is known about the performance of estates of ESHS in Beijing developed after 2007 under the new regulations. Largely missing from the existing literature is an analytical account of the development of ESHS in Beijing and an in-depth evaluation and explanation of its performance in recent years. This study thus aims to examine and analyze the effectiveness of ESHS since 2007 with the intention of helping to improve the effectiveness of ESHS and to provide useful lessons to other subsidized housing schemes in Beijing. Following the lead of scholars who have studied subsidized housing schemes in other countries and areas, this study built up its own analytical framework appropriate to the Chinese context. To achieve the study goal, the evaluation of the performance of ESHS was conducted in terms of four indicators: housing affordability, housing accessibility, housing availability and housing quality. The investigation of the causes were conducted from the public policy perspective focusing on policy design and policy implementation. To enhance the data base, open-ended interviews with officials at different levels from different government departments and structured questionnaire surveys with residents in ESHS in Beijing had been conducted. This study reveals that the performance of ESHS after 2007 was barely acceptable. Specifically, the housing affordability and housing accessibility and housing quality of ESHS were less than satisfactory. Even though the housing availability of ESHS in quantity terms did not have significant problems, the housing availability in terms of location was highly undesirable. As for housing affordability, it is found that the ESHS was more affordable to urban residents than to suburban residents, the major reason being the higher income enjoyed by the former. Regarding housing accessibility, this study found that the approach to determine the eligibility criteria of ESHS failed to include all the households who could not afford to purchase market housing. In the housing quality domain, it is found that ESHS housing estates in Beijing failed to meet the residents’ daily needs, and suffered from poor housing construction quality and inconvenient locations. In addition to the evaluation of performance, this study also found that besides the strong commitments from the government, policy design commensurate with policy goal and effective policy implementation determines the performance of a subsidized housing scheme. In particular, the formulation of eligibility criteria and the pricing mechanism at the policy design stage, and the conflicting interests of the three levels of government at the implementation stage were most critical. This study further argues that the four dimensions of performance which were inter-connected to each other were all commonly hinged upon the use of land as the main source of subsidy. This study adds to the existing literature on contemporary China by evaluating and explaining the most recent performance of a dominant housing subsidy policy tool in China. By constructing and employing a comprehensive conceptual framework for the analysis, this study offers to the contemporary China literature a sophisticated yet revealing conceptual tool to unveil the intricacies of housing subsidies in the rapidly changing China. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The trend of householders’ selection and location for housing indicate socioeconomic benefit and productivity. Hence, many scholars and decision makers have paid attention to spatial patterns of different social population in urban living place. As global city, Hong Kong is well-developed and high-ranked. The excessive differentiation and isolation of underclass and elite population in residential space may bring about negative effects for individual welfare, governance of community, development of urban economy and social stability. This dissertation based on the Census data in 2011 examines 13 social groups as element groups of residential segregation and identify that the white & Filipino nationality, three types of housing, high income, professional and manager & administrators are the main elements of residential segregation in Hong Kong, which is characterized by high class population, two types of public housing and private permanent residence. Meanwhile, by reviewing the development of socio-economic pattern changes in Hong Kong, the factors of segregation is not only the outcome of economic stimulation but also closely related to the physical environment, policy and regimen in the process of development in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Housing is politically important and thus governments tend to intervene in housing market a lot. Today, housing is one of most significant livelihood issues in Hong Kong. Solving the housing problem is accorded with top priority by the current Government. Therefore, the Government formed the Long Term Housing Strategy Steering Committee in September 2012 to make recommendations on housing strategy of Hong Kong for the next ten years. One of the areas for study is the sharp increase in number of Waiting List applications which is indeed an expression of imbalance between demand and supply for public rental housing. After the Global Financial Crisis, the number of Waiting List applications has doubled in five years, at a compound annual growth rate of15.4%. Such increase is a combined result of increase in demand, decrease in supply and inefficient allocation of public rental housing for Waiting List applicants. This dissertation firstly attempts to find out the factors and root causes leading to this phenomenon, and then tries to work out some possible solutions for solving the present problem of public rental housing. By analyzing the components of housing system namely demand, supply and allocation, the root causes leading to their changes are studied, with aim to explain the recent sharp increase in Waiting List applications for public rental housing in Hong Kong. The areas of analyses include the demographic changes, single non-elderly applicants, affordability problem for private housing, supply of new production and recovery of public rental housing flats for Waiting List applicants, eligibility for public rental housing, and the efficiency of allocation mechanism. In addition, the desire of Waiting List applicants for public rental housing is also studied through a questionnaire survey because similar secondary data are not available. Lastly, due to the inelasticity of supply of housing to demand, it is essential for the Government to take timely measures before crisis is happened which may eventually affect the effective governance, suggestions are thus made accordingly in the last part of this dissertation with aim to reduce the sustained imbalance between supply and demand for public rental housing in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Population aging becomes a serious social problem when the society develops into a certain stage, and it has a close relationship with the national economy and people’s livelihood, as well as the future of a country. Also, the improvement of medical level and social welfare help people prolong their life expectancy. As a developing country, which includes nearly 1/4 population of the world, China also faces the severe aging problem. After the establishment of People’s Republic of China, the population grows with a very high rapid. Later, the Chinese government implemented the One Child Policy at the beginning of 1980, this policy gradually modified the family structure in the micro dimension and the population structure in the macro dimension. There are more and more 4-2-1 families, which means there are 4 grandparents, 2 parents and only one child in one family, and this family structure causes some troubles and challenges to the traditional model, which is taking care of the old at home. The government and families all have difficulties to take care of the elderly people. As a result, the elderly housing emerges at the right moment. The world pays more attention to taking care of the elderly people, and many relative concepts have been introduced around the world. Such as the healthy ageing and active ageing pronounced by the WHO, and some other concepts like the ageing-in-place and community care, etc. All of these concepts give us a theoretical foundation when research on the development of elderly housing in China. Beijing Suncity Living Community is one of the best elderly communities in China, this dissertation tries to do a case study about the elderly housing in Suncity. After the data analysis, the author found that the Suncity does well in the design of the community, which suits the physical characteristics of the elderly people. Also, the services and facilities for the elderly people are relative complete, which can help the elderly people to spend their spare time in a more interesting way. However, the management in the Suncity is not good, and this may give the elderly people a sense of unsafety. Also, it may bring bad impact to their psychological health. Then, the recommendation about both the Suncity and the development of elderly housing in China will also be given. For the Suncity, it must change the poor management, and one method is to employ some professional people to enhance the management level. For the later development of elderly housing in China, recommendations are given from design of the elderly community and management of the elderly community. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences