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

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

Culture-led regeneration policy has become a global trend in many major cities worldwide (UNCHS, 2004; Miles and Paddison, 2005). While overseas governments such as the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia have directed their regeneration policies to encourage the creative class and industries; Hong Kong is again left behind. Some scholars suggest that the culture-led strategy can act as the twenty-first century driver for regeneration, able to better preserve social networks and capital, and hence bring greater benefit to the local residents (Szeto, 2007). However, the methods of promoting culture-led regeneration in the Hong Kong context are rarely discussed. In addition, to what extend urban planning could help to facilitate creative class, and its possible impact on local residents is yet to be studied. This dissertation therefore has a two-way focus; on one hand, it seeks to address the research gap on how culture-led regeneration can be implemented in Hong Kong; on the other hand, it contributes to the academic debate by exploring the mechanism of capitalising culture in a regeneration project in order to maximise the ways at which local residents can truly benefit. It is often assumed that the integration of cultural production, consumption and community art programmes bring about the greatest benefits for the local economy, and hence benefit the locals by ‘trickle down’ effect (Binns, 2005). However, this dissertation argues that the community and its institutions play an important role in distributing the wealth created by culture-led redevelopment. While gentrification as well as the displacement of local residents, is usually observed in culture-led regeneration, progressive community planning and community ownership of the ‘Common’ can help in breaking the monopoly of rent and fixed capitals, to the benefit of local residents. The case of Hoxton – with the success of its local organizations in reducing the pressures of gentrification – is studied alongside with a case of similar background, Noho, Hong Kong, to explore new research and enlighten a possible new policy direction of culture-led regeneration in Hong Kong. Both cases are led by artists and creative industries in the area with the aim of revitalizing poor local economies. In light of this, the two cases are compared to firstly address the research gap on the community role in a sustainable culture-led regeneration, and then to enlighten a possible new policy direction of culture-led regeneration in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

This study, with its research question ‘To what extent is housing mix related to social sustainable development of new towns and what is the influence of housing mix on social sustainability in new towns?’ sets out to develop a critical understanding of and examine the relevance and desirability of incorporating customary housing mix practice in developing Hong Kong new towns to social sustainability through providing a detailed account of relationships between social mix concept and social sustainability concept as well as the influence of housing mix to new town development in social sustainability aspect. Both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches were taken, including a questionnaire survey in a cluster sampling survey approach and a semi-structured interview, to collect data from 100 local public housing residents each at two study areas, Shatin and Tin Shui Wai, which were selected based on the assumption that one has better social sustainable development derived from a balanced housing mix, while one has lower level of social sustainability due to an imbalanced housing mix respectively. Data tabulation and content analysis were used to analyze data collected. Findings and analysis of this study suggest that the assumption of social interpersonal process brought by social mix in the same community is questionable and even not justifiable in the context of two study areas. From this perspective, there is no expectation that social mix would contribute to middle class role modeling and individual upward mobility. The interrelationship of level of mixing and the anticipated social outcomes of social mix in both towns are argued to be impractical. Thus, it further argues that social mix, in the context of both towns, does not promote social sustainability of new towns, from the fact that social cohesion is a vital aspect of social sustainability. Arising from these findings, implications are also drawn from the study that planners may have a relative weak role to plan for social development and the uncritically adoption of housing mix may shrink the production of public housings in future new town developments in view of a current huge public demand in Hong Kong. Although there are limitations in the research design and study scope and a tentative conclusion can only be reached with a selected angle of observation in this study, a more comprehensive and detailed exploration on interrelationship between social mix and sustainable development in new towns can be carried out in future is still recommended. It also proposes that forced heterogeneity should not be uncritically adopted by planners, who can study other planning tools to enhance other aspects of social sustainability of a new town. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning