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Displacement by Neoliberalism: Addressing the Housing Crisis of Hong Kong in the Restructuring of Pearl River Delta Region

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Book cover Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities and Housing in Asia

Part of the book series: The Contemporary City ((TCONTCI))

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Abstract

The chapter offers a review of how the planning of housing provision has transformed in post-handover Hong Kong against the rise of China’s influence. Focusing on housing or geographies of housing, this chapter argues that neoliberalism has evolved in Hong Kong as an ongoing process of reshaping the boundary of the city, which demands a normalization of displacement. ‘Displacement’ has been naturalized in a set of policy changes resulting from a hybrid of developmentalism and neoliberalism. In the chapter, the author discusses how displacement has occurred in three senses, yet is embedded in a particular mode of economic growth, and how housing shapes and is shaped by a continuous rearrangement of economics, employment, and cross-border geographies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) was designed as shared equity housing for middle income, first-time buyers in Hong Kong. It was sold to the better-off public housing tenants for them become homeowners. See more in Yip’s (2014) discussion on how HOS contributed to the property-based welfare in Hong Kong.

  2. 2.

    See the Minutes of LegCo regular meeting in 2004 (pp. 5159–5160), 30 June, http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr03-04/chinese/counmtg/hansard/cm0630ti-translate-c.pdf, last accessed 21 December 2018.

  3. 3.

    See more discussion about the highly political debates on citizenship in Hong Kong in Appendix I, On Babies born to non-Hong Kongers (20 March 2013), http://gia.info.gov.hk/general/201302/20/P201302200467_0467_107398.pdf, last accessed 21 December 2018.

  4. 4.

    See the report announced by HKSAR, ‘Tax revenue up 24 per cent’, 4 May 2015, http://www.news.gov.hk/en/categories/finance/html/2015/05/20150504_143659.shtml, last accessed 21 December 2018.

  5. 5.

    The annual survey by the Demographia International (2015) suggests that if housing prices exceed three times an annual household income, there would be serious political impediments. In 2015, Hong Kong’s unaffordability was a case to the point. It was the highest recorded, with its median multiples as 17.0, which was followed by Vancouver whose median multiple was 10.6.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Shu-Mei Huang

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  1. Shu-Mei Huang
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Correspondence to Shu-Mei Huang .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA

    Yi-Ling Chen

  2. London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

    Hyun Bang Shin

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Huang, SM. (2019). Displacement by Neoliberalism: Addressing the Housing Crisis of Hong Kong in the Restructuring of Pearl River Delta Region. In: Chen, YL., Shin, H. (eds) Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities and Housing in Asia. The Contemporary City. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55015-6_3

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