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The high property price syndrome in Hong Kong has led to heightened concern about the role of landed capital in property development. Recently, the hegemony of the real estate industry has become a buzzword in local literature, but unfortunately there is neither adequate theoretical articulation nor informed understanding of the concept of hegemony. There is widespread misunderstanding of hegemony, equating it to domination by property tycoons. The local literature has overlooked the government-business collusion in constructing the common sense of society so as to dominate others. Through an empirical investigation of the redevelopment of 'Government/Institution or Community' (G/IC) land in Hong Kong, this article attempts to offer an alternative explanation to the land question of G/IC redevelopment by highlighting that the everyday life of the silent majority and of professionals has in fact perpetuated the hegemony of the real estate industry in Hong Kong. It is argued that the government, property developers, professionals, charitable organisations and the general public have altogether participated, in different ways and to different extents, in the capital accumulation projects of leading developer conglomerates in Hong Kong. A land (re)development regime has thus contributed to the property boom in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the domination of land and real estate developers in Hong Kong, China. The author notes that the developers impose an image of Hong Kong that is favorable to the world, but is not necessarily accurate. As an example the author notes the torch relay for 2008 Summer Olympics. He points out that the majority of torch bearers were those involved in the real estate business, not athletes as is usually associated with the event. He also points out that the route of the relay bypasses the more impoverished areas of Hong Kong, favoring well developed areas instead. The author goes on to note that apartment rent prices are the highest in the world helped in part by what he calls the (re)development regime.

The city of Beijing has increasingly been re-integrated with the world since the 1980s, thereby entering into closer, but more complex relationships with the global system. To understand the implications for urban planning, it is important to appreciate that Beijing is handling these global-local relationships amid delicate 'local' relationships with the Chinese state, in ways that are obviously different from those of the West. The objective of this paper is to throw light on how new global and local forces have infl uenced planning in Beijing, fi rst by understanding the nature of urban government in Beijing and then by examining master plans for the city. From a Foucauldian perspective, it tries to describe state practices, including urban planning, of the Chinese governmentality. It focuses on the effectiveness of government during this new era, taking into account non-state practices, including those adopted from the outside world. It argues that the state needs to invent new toolkits and conceive urban problems differently to cope with these new forces. The paper illustrates this argument by investigating the formulation of the two master plans for Beijing, the 1954 and 2005 Plans, and documents how the latter has been updated to incorporate these new global and local forces. It concludes that there is no uni-directional interaction between global and local. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to build on these published works by examining the role planning has played in directing development in Shenzhen, Guangdong Sheng, China. "Planning" in this paper is not restricted to spatial land use planning, but rather also includes socio-economic planning. Integration of these two types of planning is essential because socioeconomic activities must take place in physical space, and if spatial planning is not integrated with socioeconomic planning, the latter will be very difficult to implement. This paper is divided into two main parts. The first part argues that existing theoretical perspectives do not adequately explain the Shenzhen experiment. However, one thing is certain, socioeconomic and spatial planning by the central and local governments has played a major role in the transformation of Shenzhen from a rural county into a modem metropolis. The second part of the paper analyzes in detail how planning rhetoric was fashioned to accommodate the development realities of Shenzhen over time.

Most of the existing planning theories (theories in urban development, of planning practice and justifications for planning) and debates about their interrelationships are derived from the contexts of basically 'demand-constrained' (capitalist) economies. Some authors have attempted to theorize urban planning in transitional economies. However, theorization based on concrete planning practices in a city in the transition from a 'resource-constrained' to a 'demand-constrained' economy is an uncharted terrain. This paper attempts to take up this challenge and through a detailed case study of Shenzhen, China's first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) explores the relationships between urban development and planning in a transitional economy. Shenzhen's experience proves that a perceptive understanding of urban development can provide us with important clues for understanding the nature of and theoretical justifications for changing urban planning practices. In return, the reformed planning practice helps sharpen our reflections on the constraints and feasible options of urban development in a transitional economy. In this sense, urban planning practice, at least in the case of Shenzhen, is 'path dependent' and has the potential to be increasingly 'path shaping'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes issue with the desakota model developed by Terry McGee by elucidating the illegal land use and construction in the rural–urban transition zone in China, with the additional case study of Tianhe Village in Guangzhou City. The paper emphasises the need to examine the geography of illegal activities along the approach of geographies of difference. It has shown that illegal land use and construction is prevalent in rural China. In rural areas where cultivated land has been converted to non-agricultural purposes, peasants are left with no alternative but to use land and construct buildings illegally. Some have increased their income by leasing out flats to migrant workers, whereas others have not been able to do this. This study has revealed that underneath the positive and integrative picture portrayed by the desakota model is its negative and disintegrative counterpart. Illegal land use and construction is one such example. Unless we incorporate both into our studies, we will not be able to comprehend the urban morphology of Chinese city regions in the new millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both academicians and businessmen in the West have been fascinated by the recent reforms in the urban land administration system in many parts of China, including the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, Guangzhou, Fushun and Shanghai. There have been developments of pricing systems for urban land parcels, in the form of either land user fee or land tax, and of some kinds of land market, including leaseholdship for foreign investors. As a corollary, parcel alter parcel of raw land has been transformed, and new houses for sale spring up like mushrooms. These drastic developments can only be fruitfully examined and evaluated with respect to an informed understanding of the pre-reform situation. This paper attempts to provide a preliminary understanding of the urban land development process in China by examining the rationale and the nature of urban land production, that is, why and how raw land is allocated and serviced and serviced land is used and re-used, in the light of the interaction of various agents within the socialist economy and state. The writers hope that the paper will lay down the groundwork for an understanding and evaluation of the various reform measures implemented in the urban land system, namely, administration and allocation, in the past few years. It is also the intention of the author that this discussion of the Chinese case will contribute to the debate in the literature of urban land development as a whole.