Observations in a number of developed countries have shown a stagnating or declining trend in the level of car use and sparked a heated debate on whether such trend would persist into the future. While arguments over the potential causes of this trend remain largely unsettled, the crucial implications of the long-term trends on the strategic development of transport infrastructure as well as the long-term planning schemes in the transportation sector are generally agreed upon. This study aims at providing evidence of the changing trends in an under-researched area with historically limited car dependence and distinct cultural and social characteristics through disaggregate analysis on several large-scale datasets. Three separate case studies were carried out to identify the changes in car ownership, activity-travel behavior, car use, and personal attitudes towards cars in different Chinese cities, namely Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Beijing. Statistical modeling approaches were applied for the disaggregate analysis at the household and individual levels. Findings in the case study of Hong Kong suggest that the level of car ownership and car use has shown indications of levelling-off and even a certain degree of decrease in the past decade, despite the low level of car dependence for the entirety of the city's history. Results in the case of Shenzhen, on the other hand, indicate a surging car ownership rate in recent years, which is in contrast with the situation in its neighboring city of Hong Kong. The interactions between built environment and travel behavior have also changed significantly in Shenzhen, a city undergoing rapid expansion. The third case study reports that the level of auto-mobility has increased significantly during the past decade in Shenzhen and all age groups and cohorts experienced similar uptrends in car ownership and car use. In addition, analysis on the dataset from Beijing suggests that young adults do not evaluate private cars and their functions as favorably as the middle-age adults. Findings in this study contribute to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on the recent changes in car ownership, activity-travel behavior, and attitudes towards private cars in the Chinese context. This study also highlights the importance to expand the range of research attention out of the developed and motorized countries in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics in travel behavior and auto-mobility around the world. Findings also have important policy implications in curbing auto-dependence in daily travel and planning and managing future transportation.

How should nature be written? Writing has long been a way for people to understand nature. Still, we have come to an age that we need to reconceptualize our relation with nature. Nature can no longer be regarded as a passive stage upon which human beings act. How should we understand nature so that nature is made inanimate? I propose that the solution, known as “Schizo-Natural Writing,” can be found in Dung Kai-cheung’s Natural Histories Trilogy. Hong Kong is commonly seen as a city. Correspondingly, when it comes to Hong Kong literature, the term appears frequently will be “city writing”. It is not surprising, given that Hong Kong has always been recognised as a highly-developed city, one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Famous literary works in Hong Kong like Xi Xi’s My City (西西，我城), A Dictionary of Two Cities co-written by Hon Lai Chu and Dorothy Tse Hiu Hong (韓麗珠、謝曉虹，雙城辭典), Wong Bik Wan’s The City of Lost (黃碧雲，失城), just to name some. This phenomenon is closely related to the historical background of Hong Kong. According to Chan (2009), the connection between Hong Kong literature and its cityscape can be dated back to 1950s. Though it does not mean that there are no non-urban writings, those were not in the mainstream. However, in 2000s one of the most influential local writers, Dung Kai Cheung (1967 -), has begun his Natural Histories Trilogy. He is the director in The House of Hong Kong Literature, a folk organisation of local literature. His publication includes, Androgyny: Evolution of a Non-existent Species (1996), a story about a female scientist who went into the wild and sought a nonexistent species, named as androgyny and Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City (1997), an imaginary archaeology in the future Hong Kong, which has been translated into English. During 2005 to 2010, he published the Natural Histories Trilogy, including firstly, the History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera (2018, which titled in Chinese, 天工開物．栩栩如真), secondly, the Histories of Time: The Light of Nga Chi (2007, 時間繁史．啞瓷之光) and thirdly, on the Origin of Species: The Rebirth of Bui Bui - The Age of Apprenticeship (2010, 物種源始．貝貝重生 之 學習年代). In the trilogy, Dung Kai-cheung, echoing Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of “nature=industry”, highlighted the productivity of nature, or the naturing of nature. As such, he no longer writes nature. He writes schizo-naturally. I further adopted the term “ecology”, which on the one hand pointed out the close relation between the item produced during the schizo-natural writing; on the other hand, echoed Guattari’s the Three Ecology. In this thesis, there are four parts investigating four types of ecology: mental ecology, social ecology, environmental ecology and spatiotemporal ecology. Through examining the trilogy, love, being standing outside oneself, is advocated to be the way out of the fragmented world. Keywords: Dung Kai-cheung, the Natural Histories Trilogy, nature writing, Gilles Deleuze, Ecology

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This dissertation explores the concept of shi manifested in traditional Chinese architecture by examining the efficacy of the traditional Chinese house doors. Three connotations of the concept of shi derived from different philosophical schools of thought during the Warring States Period: the advantageous shi, the authoritative shi and the self-so-doing shi, are re-engaged as the theoretical framework for this study. The three categories of shi correspondingly shed light on the understanding of the craftiness in architectural constructions, the embodied cultural meanings in building elements and the aesthetics achieved by the artful arrangement of building elements. This study also further reveals the essential nature of shi as weak and amorphous in parallel with the weak ontology proposed by Gianni Vattimo. It is this weak and amorphous nature of shi that results in the complexity, diversity and richness of traditional Chinese house doors. This new perspective of examining architecture through the lens of shi also provides a way for looking at the future development of Chinese architecture beyond the limitations of internationalism yet within the realm of a critical local modernity. / Ph. D.

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

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

published_or_final_version / abstract / Business / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Politics and Public Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

Xiong, Yan. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-202). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese; some appendixes in Chinese.