Urban redevelopment and Urban Governance: a comparative study between Taipei and Hong Kong

• Main Authors: Li-ling Huang, 黃麗玲
• Other Authors: Chu-Joe Hsia
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/61459313234666980682

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 建築與城鄉研究所 === 90 === Abstract For city governance, urban redevelopment policy is more than an issue of managing physical urban space. Indeed, being based on the contesting definitions about ‘public interests’, urban redevelopment policy involves multiple social actors, and would be better addressed as a political, economy and social policy. Thus, it often functions as the meeting point of confrontation and collaboration among state, capital and grassroots. The governments of Taipei and Hong Kong have strengthened their approaches of urban redevelopment since the 1990s. Both cities have revised the land ordinance, set up the new agent, and initiated programs for launching urban redevelopment. However, two factors, different levels of democratization and approaches of finance principle, led to distinguished approaches of urban redevelopment between two cities. In a context of stronger competition of party politics and monitoring power of grassroots, Taipei city government, cares for its political legitimacy more than the economic revenue. Thus, parting from its early approach of slum clearance, in the late 1990s its approach turns to providing public facilities, conducting historical preservation and involving community participation. In contrast, for decades the Hong Kong government has been using urban redevelopment policy for advancing the land rent and increasing governmental revenue, which has been an attitude evolved from, one the one hand, and its colonial finance principle, and on the other, the public/ private partnership on maintaining the regime. Moreover, the challenge of new global economy in the 1990s makes this feature even stronger. As a result, non- property owners suffer most and the gap between rich and poor is continuously enlarged. While citizen mobilization emerged to challenge the market-led urban redevelopment, the political framework in Hong Kong downplays the effects of social actions. By comparing the history, approaches, and mechanism of urban redevelopment policy between Taipei and Hong Kong, this research brings the issue of urban redevelopment policy back to the field of urban politics and urban economy in an Asian context. It demonstrates the possibility of how grassroots could be effective in changing the existing approach of urban redevelopment, and also offers a perspective on observing how two rapid urbanizing cities respectively response the new urban imperatives in the 1990s. Keywords: Urban Redevelopment, Urban Governance, Taipei, Hong Kong