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Abstract Implementing energy saving measures (ESMs) in buildings is a critical part of the global de-carbonization process. To private building owners, the cost-effectiveness of ESMs is a major concern. To public policy makers, maximizing carbon reduction within budgets is a common goal. As such, a plethora of studies have been pursued to evaluate the economic or environmental effectiveness of ESMs; however, the reliability of their results are often uncertain due to the dearth of real data. This paper reports a case study on evaluating the retrofit adopted for the air-conditioning (AC) system of a commercial building in Hong Kong. Using longitudinal energy and cost data of the AC system, the economic performance of the retrofit was evaluated by analyzing its net present value and return on investment, and an indicator known as 'carbon reduction efficiency' was introduced to assess the environmental-cum-economic performance of the retrofit. Besides the development of a scaling factor that accounts for the climatic influence on AC energy use, the effect of equipment degradation on the long-term environmental performance of the retrofit was revealed. Providing empirical evidence of economic or environmental effectiveness of ESMs, this study illustrates a rigorous, pragmatic approach to evaluating retrofit projects in real-world buildings. Highlights • Used real data to evaluate the economic performance of building energy retrofits. • Assessed environmental-cum-economic performance by carbon reduction efficiency. • Developed a scaling factor that accounts for climatic influence on energy use. • Revealed the effect of equipment degradation on the energy performance of retrofits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on Harvey's assertion on class monopoly rent, this paper investigates developers' monopolist pricing decisions in urban China, with an additional focus on the heterogeneity between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private developers. By contextualizing Harvey to China's urban political economy, we find that when developers maximize profits and local governments maximize land revenues, their individual activities forge a collective to create "island-like" markets that lead to class monopoly rents, and that local governments seek to realize social goals primarily through the operation of SOEs, making SOE developers act differently. We specify a set of hypotheses on the relationship between private developers' monopolist pricing and their power in local secondary land markets and SOEs' imparity. We organize a city-level, national-scale dataset and use a fixed effects model and the instrumental variable approach to test our hypotheses. This research has implications for China's land and housing policies, and suggests that a deeper examination of the concept of class monopoly rent would facilitate a better understanding of contemporary neoliberal cities. • Harvey's class monopoly rent theory is contextualized to the political economy of China's land and housing markets. • Positive relation between land market concentration and housing prices was identified using a national-scale panel dataset. • Developers in the eastern region and in large cities are more likely to adopt monopolist pricing decisions. • SOE developers price housing significantly lower than private developers across the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The delineation of the land occupied by Public Rental Housing (PRH) is a contentious issue in worldwide debates over PRH privatization. Heated arguments hold that governments should retain the occupied land for mitigating inequalities that privatization might provoke. Dual-role policies arise concerning both efficiency and equality. This research seeks to decode actual consequences of such policies based on their implementation in Hong Kong, with a specific focus on the Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS). Intended to enliven PRH within needy families, the TPS policy instead resulted in dormant resale of privatized PRH with adverse effects on target groups. Hypotheses on how the TPS policy has affected housing resale are developed based on property rights and searching theories and tested against empirical data. This research offers a theoretical basis for exploring solutions to the unanticipated aftermath of Hong Kong’s PRH privatization and provides information for other governments on implications of privatization strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Inconsistences between demographic, economic and technical (DET) factors and policies affect how compactness affects QoP. • Compact growth driven by DET changes are more effective in fostering better QoP. • In economically backward cities, policy shocks toward compactness could improve QoP. • In relatively developed cities, policy shocks could have attenuated positive impacts of compactness on QoP. The conventional wisdom that compact city fosters quality of place (QoP) has been contested in the literature, leaving the nexus between urban expansion and QoP something of a black-box. This paper investigates the magnitude of additional QoP achievements derived from increasing compactness for 362 Chinese cities. We propose that an expansion consists of a fundamental part (FLE) in consistency with fundamental factors such as demographic, economic and technical changes and a transitory part (TLE) mainly driven by policy shocks, while these two parts would affect QoP heterogeneously. We find that compact FLE has positive effects on QoP, which, however, may be attenuated by TLE. We also discern that positive effects of compactness on QoP are most pronounced in cities located in economically backward areas of the west; and only cities in this region have QoP positively related to compact TLE, indicating that even policy shocks could improve QoP here as long as they are promoting compactness. This research has theoretical contributions and implications for China's urban polies that a move from sweeping directives on urban expansion to connecting with fundamental changes is more effective in fostering QoP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid urbanization leads to the dynamic changes of the urban external landscape and forms different urban growth patterns (UGP), which in turn affects the development level of the urban internal functions as well. However, few studies have quantitatively examined the spatial stratified heterogeneity (SSH) and driving mechanism of the urban development level (UDL) under different UGPs. Based on the multi-source geographic data of 368 Chinese cities, this study identified the UGP at the patch scale from 2010 to 2020. It furthermore quantified the UDL of newly added construction land. In order to reveal the SSH pattern, motivating factors, and interaction mechanism of the UDL under different UGPs, this paper chose to use the optimal parameter-based geographic detector (OPGD) model, which accounts for the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP). The results indicate that: 1) There are significant spatial differences in the UDL among different UGPs. Namely, the infilling pattern exhibits the highest UDL, followed by the edge pattern, and the outlying pattern, which has the worst UDL; 2) The SSH of the UDL is defined by the interaction of multiple factors. Different UGPs have both differences and similarities in their motivating factors, thus affecting the spatial distribution of UDL. GDP density and road network density are the two factors with the strongest driving force for all UGPs. Specifically, the UDL of infilling-expansion areas is more sensitive to the industrial structure and infrastructure conditions. On the other hand, factors such as residential density and socio-economic activities are more important to the UDL of edge-expansion areas, while population, topography, and location factors have a stronger influence on the UDL of outlying-expansion; 3) A change of spatial scale will result in the heterogeneity of the influence of motivating factors in each UGP. In general, the systematic comparison of the SSH and driving mechanism of UDL under different UGPs helps us explore high-quality and sustainable urbanization paths. As a result, this scientific field is given theoretical basis for urban planners and managers to rationally regulate external urban forms and optimize the internal structure layout. • The SSH and the driving mechanism of UDL in China under three UGPs were revealed with OPGD model mining. • Accounting for the MAUP, there is significant SSH in UDL among different UGPs. • Different UGPs have both differences and similarities in their motivating factors, thus affecting the SSH of UDL. • Changes in the scale of spatial analysis resulted in the heterogeneity of the influence of motivating factors in each UGP. • Exploring the drivers of UDL in different scenarios helps urban managers develop sustainable urbanization policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to gain a clearer understanding of Hong Kong's state-led urban renewal, its justification and value effects, with a concentrate on the redevelopment of occupied dwellings into new residences. This study revisits the establishment of the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) and analyzes key differences in how this agency differs from its predecessor. The theoretical analysis shows that the problem of multi-ownership has played a key role in fostering the pattern of urban renewal in Hong Kong. Given this we propose that the political power of resumption (i.e., taking or eminent domain) critically shapes the URA's low-cost advantage in land assembly and forms the basis that carves a niche for state-led redevelopment. This proposition is tested by estimating externalities of transforming Tong Lau —Hong Kong's unique type of historical strata titled housing—to residences fitting to the modern building structure using difference-in-differences techniques. Findings reveal significant and prolonged effects of urban renewal projects on nearby housing prices. This paper implores researchers and policy-makers to pay attention to residential renewal and questions about why a redevelopment project should be led by the public sector. • This paper investigates the role of government in urban renewal. • The paper concentrates on tong lau —multi-owned buildings in Hong Kong. • Thesis of this paper follows an abductive strategy and is empirically corroborated. • The study generates implications to a broader context beyond the focal case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sensitivity of housing demand to income changes has important implications for the evolution of housing affordability and the behavior of urban households. In Hong Kong, investigations into this issue have shown the increasing importance of the private rental housing market, which is regarded as suboptimal and to contribute to gentrification and inequality problems. Using microdata from four waves of Hong Kong census data between 1996 and 2011, this paper aims to estimate the income elasticity of demand for private rental housing. A permanent income model was adopted to isolate permanent income and transitory income at household level. Then, the Heckman two-stage procedure was used to correct selection bias and the quantile regression (QR) approach was used to investigate the heterogeneity of demand elasticities across different tiers of housing expenditure. The empirical results showed that the permanent income elasticities fell within a range of 0.536–0.698 and transitory income shock had a positive and significant impact on the demand for rental housing. Moreover, a U shape of permanent income elasticity across the whole distribution of housing expenditure was revealed. Households in both the upper and lower tiers were more sensitive to permanent income changes, with the higher tier of households being more sensitive to transitory income shocks. These findings not only shed light on the long-term movement and cross-sectional heterogeneity of housing demand in the private rental housing market, but also have implications for studies of the rental housing demand in other developed cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of technology on the environment in the context of improving the economy is highly valued. However, the large-scale, industry-specific investigation of technology as a means of nurturing sustainability and cleaner production methods has remained in short supply. Based on nationwide data concerning 412 construction projects located in mainland China, this research addresses the various impacts of environment-related technologies by quantitatively assessing differences in construction waste discharge between production modes that use and those that do not use prefabrication. The results show that at the current level of technology utilization, the total waste generation rate of prefabricated building projects is 25.85% less than that of nonprefabricated projects, while prefabrication can work effectively to reduce most types of construction waste (inorganic nonmetallic waste, organic waste, metallic waste, and composite waste), with the exception of hazardous waste. It is further found that the effectiveness of increasing prefabrication rates would be rather limited for waste reduction if the technological level remained unchanged. These findings are robust in the context of providing practical policy implications for China's promotion of prefabrication in the construction industry, and they serve as theoretical evidence for environmental improvement due to prefabrication adoption. 1 This paper tackles the technology-environment relationship in construction. 2 T test assesses whether the effect of prefabrication adoption on waste reduction is significant. 3 Curve fitting model describes relationships between prefabrication rates and waste reduction. 4 Based on 412 projects, prefabrication can reduce construction waste by 25.85%. 5 Prefabrication is effective in reducing most waste items except for hazardous waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]