Testing the Global City-Social Polarisation Thesis: Hong Kong since the 1990s

Abstract

The literature on the development of global cities suggests that Hong Kong had qualified as a global city by the early 1990s. Using data from the Population Censuses, this paper documents the extent to which the process of social polarisation accompanied Hong Kong's globalisation. As predicted by the global city literature, Hong Kong experienced during the 1990s a process of occupational polarisation and widening income inequality as a result of its transformation from an industrial colony to a producer service-driven global city. The paper outlines the gender dimension in this polarisation process, and how the forces of migration contributed to the reshaping of the social structure so that it now resembles an 'hour-glass'. The findings largely support Sassen's hypotheses regarding the social consequences of global city development, but the paper also highlights the effect of local institutional contexts in mediating the impact of global forces.

Coupling Social Solidarity and Social Harmony in Hong Kong

“…When the influences from these features are strong, they may preempt other influences on social harmony and solidarity. These features are all exceptionally high in Hong Kong (Chiu and Lui 2004;La Grange and Pretorius 2002). Hence, social harmony and solidarity may be less predictable in Hong Kong than in other places.…”

Retrospective and prospective evaluations of environmental quality under urban renewal as determinants of residents’ subjective quality of life

“…The similarities of urban renewal, housing development, urbanization, and socioeconomic development of Hong Kong with other modern cities in the world are notable in the emphasis on social impact assessment (Interorganizational Committee on Guidelines and Principles for Social Impact Assessment, 1994; Planning and Lands Bureau, 2001;Vanclay, 2000Vanclay, , 2003, liberal and simple housing and real property law (Haila, 2000), and postindustrial and networked developments in international finance and trade (Chiu & Lui, 2004). As Hong Kong is among the ten most competitive cities in the world (Ho & Chan, 2003), it needs to maintain and revitalize its urban areas to boost its development (Adams & Hastings, 2001).…”

Globalization, de-industrialization and Hong Kong's private rental sector

“…Smith and Timberlake used formal network analysis of airline passenger travel among global cities and, in addition to the structurally dominant cities of Long New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Amsterdam and Zurich, identified gateway cities such as Miami, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Singapore, which link different economic zones (cited in Shin & Timberlake, 2000). The Gobalization and World Cities Research Group measures world city-ness according to four service capacities: accountancy, advertising, banking and law and identify Hong Kong as a prime global centre in terms of legal and banking services and a major global centre in terms of accountancy and advertising, overall classified as an ''alpha world city'' (Chiu & Lui, 2004). Lo and Yeung (1996) identify the rise of the ''borderless economies'' including the Hong Kong-Zhujiang Delta.…”

“…Other studies found 575,000 and another 847,000 local people were poor (Leung, 1999). Chiu and Lui (2004) interrogated the Census data to assess whether Hong Kong has experienced typical polarization associated with its rise to global city status. They found that polarization was clearly observable in changes to the occupational structure between 1991 and 2001 and this was both relative and absolute.…”