JAUE2012-053: Regeneration Project as a Contested Neoliberal Urban Symbol: The Case of Gentrifying Kwun Tong Town Centre Project under 'Property Hegemony'

Abstract

The paper explores the socio-political process behind Hong Kong's urban regeneration in the context of neoliberal city.
Through analyzing the case of redevelopment project in Kwun Tong, the earliest planning experiment of industrial satellite town in the 1950s Hong Kong, the paper indicates that the contemporary process of urban restructuring under neoliberalization shapes the capitalist logic of spatial production to regenerate the outdated industrial sites and public housing. The paper explores the social structure of property-led urban regime favored by Hong Kong's specific land policy and planning system and illustrates why, in Hong Kong, the capitalist logic dominates the agenda of urban governance and property interest matters in urban regeneration. Reviewing the social construction and transformation of spatial meaning driven by the capitalist logic towards neoliberalization, the paper argues that Kwun Tong case exhibits the force of state-led gentrification based on property development. Behind the new landscape of urban imagineering pursuing commercial benefits, the asymmetric influence in the redevelopment project between property interest and social reproduction intensifies the creative destruction of old community fabric because the government-business alliance - "property hegemony" determines the spatial value and land use pattern favoring the windfall of capital accumulation in terms of property development.