Hong Kong public and squatter housing : geopolitics and informality, 1963-1985   

• Product Details

  Product #

  2522260B

  Author(s)

  Smart, Alan

  City

  Hong Kong 

  Country

  Hong Kong 

  Language

  English 

  ISBN

  9789888805648 

  Date of Publication

  2023 

  Publisher

  Hong Kong University Press  

  Cover Type

  Soft cover 

  Pages

  321 

  Subject

  Sociology

   

• Product Details in Original Language

  Author

  Smart, Alan

  Publisher

  Hong Kong University Press  

• Description

  In Public Housing and Formalizing Squatting in Hong Kong, 1963–1985, Alan Smart and Fung Chi Keung Charles trace two decades of development of squatting in Hong Kong. The authors reconstruct the government policy on squatting through both ethnographic and archival research. The book sheds new light on the consequences of various attempts to control encroachment on scarce urban space. It argues that intersecting policy agendas resulted in decisions that were often not desired, but which emerged as practical solutions from prior failures. The authors address the challenges of explaining confidential policy decisions and offer new approaches applicable in other contexts. Overall, Smart and Fung make an important contribution to the understanding of how public housing and squatting interacted in influential ways that have been poorly understood and offer new perspectives on the challenges of urban governance and housing problems.