Beyond Gentrification: Hegemonic Redevelopment in Hong Kong

Abstract

Beyond Gentrification: Hegemonic Redevelopment in Hong Kong wing-shing tang abstractLike other concepts, gentrification must be situated in the socio-historical context in which it was produced. Since its coinage the concept has travelled widely, yet it has been applied unevenly, and in some cases uncritically, in various locations now including Asian cities. This essay challenges the application of the concept of gentrification to Hong Kong, as attempted by an article previously published in this journal. It responds through two main lines of inquiry. First, it demonstrates how the absence of historical, geographical and socio-political context weakens the basis for a critical urban geography. Second, in constructing a historical baseline, this essay proposes to conceive urban redevelopment through hegemony-cum-alienation, which is a more complicated process than displacement of the working class. Alienated hegemonic redevelopment perpetuates systemic reproduction and associated power politics, yet with the primary source of contradiction residing in landed and property relations. Conclusions suggest the urgency of developing new approaches instead of relying on more empirical studies as evidence for an already over-developed concept. Analysis of the Hong Kong case suggests how the spent concept of gentrification could be superseded by alternatives.

Is Comparative Gentrification Possible? Sceptical Voices from Hong Kong

“…There is disagreement among the critics concerning the place of culture and ideology in neighbourhood change. While terms such as the subjectivity of place (Tang, : 497) or the moral discourse of the state (Tomba, : 513) are alluded to, one critic rejects our proposition that there is a widespread culture of property in Hong Kong (Cartier, : 467). However, Carolyn Cartier mis‐attributes this criticism to Anne Haila, when Haila in fact identifies the culture of property as ‘an interesting concept … a good call' (Haila, : 500, 506).…”

“…In arguing for ‘the complexities of the local' (Lui, : 478), they accuse us of extending gentrification work ‘irrespective of context' (Cartier, : 468). The context we have missed, it seems, is the pre‐1997 colonial context, highlighted by several critics (Lui, : 481; Tang, : 489; Smart and Smart, : 522). The critics have less to say about the post‐1997 period when Hong Kong continued its transition from an industrial to a post‐industrial city (but see Lui : 485), even though this is the historical context of our paper and where we examine urban socio‐spatial change in detail.…”

“…The interventions display an aversion to political economy originating in the global North, which one critic describes as ‘oversimplification to a single logic' (Tang, : 497) because, he writes, it is ‘not the logic of capital' ( ibid . 494) that governs the production of space in Hong Kong.…”

“…The desire to distance political economy from the critique has disabling consequences. Class relations around neighbourhood change are neglected in favour of the vernacular labels of urban redevelopment or urban renewal (Tang, : 487)—labels that the Hong Kong housing theorist Ray Forrest has dismissed as ‘bland euphemisms' (Forrest, : 612). In contrast, it is gentrification that has always presented a ‘class‐relational perspective on urban change' (López‐Morales, : 570).…”

Reversing the dominant directionality: Evidence of the East Asian model of gentrification in LA's Koreatown

“…The first school of thought takes seriously that gentrification is occurring, albeit in a very new‐build, densifying, and infrastructure‐led form, leading to mass displacement and wholesale change, contrasting with the more gradual and incumbent upgrading found in many Anglo‐American cities (Shin, ; see Ley & Teo, for a more ambiguous perspective). The second school sees gentrification as yet another Global North concept being (mis)applied to East Asia, that in fact it is redevelopment tout court (Tang, ). But if we agree that gentrification produces certain globally cross‐cutting regularities, such as re‐investment, social and spatial polarisation, and displacement (Lees et al., ), then arguably the East Asian version of massive redevelopment falls under this more ecumenical gentrification rubric.…”