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Grassroots village organizations are crucial for understanding the interplay between the decentralization of state power and growing income inequality in periurban China. Based on a study of 380 shareholding cooperatives and 43 administrative villages in Guangdong, we examine how state policy has interacted with village institutions to determine the management and distribution of collective income among villagers. Our findings suggest that the decentralization of power over collective asset management and distribution to these grassroots organizations did not cause a retreat in the state’s capacity for strategic intervention and local regulatory controls. Rather, the state made continued attempts to regain power over village governance through institutional formalization. Such interventions enhanced the access of villagers to state welfare. However, they worsened income disparities among villagers by undermining the village redistributive mechanism based on informal rules.

Economic sustainability is often addressed from the perspective of economic growth and at the national level. In contrast, this research attempts to examine the question of economic sustainability of human settlement at a local project level. Urban planners need to strike a balance between dispersal and over‐concentration of population in cities. The existing theories suggest that either excessively low or extremely high levels of household concentration is undesirable to a neighborhood. In this study, an economic assessment using machine learning (ML) techniques is used to identify the threshold scale of a housing estate, which comprises many privately owned residential units (like condos) with shared amenities. Using two decades of property transaction data in Hong Kong as our evidence, this study has found that a tipping point exists in the development scale of these housing estates. Housing values initially rise with the number of residential units in a housing estate but gradually fall when it increases beyond a critical limit. This nonlinear economic relationship is attributed to the per household share of common facilities, which does not increase sufficiently to match with the growing population density of the housing estates. The policy implication is that, to optimize housing supply, urban planning should not just focus on increasing the development bulk of housing but should also pay attention to the possible bottlenecks in the provision of shared amenities in the neighborhood.

This study uses three machine learning algorithms including, support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF) and gradient boosting machine (GBM) in the appraisal of property prices. It applies the...

This study presents the spatial analysis of walking accessibility to a public facility in a hilly, multi-level urban environment. Our spatial database includes street topography, physical impedances, formal crossings, and designated access points in assessing the network distance of all private residential buildings to public open space in Hong Kong. Pedestrian movement of uneven speed on walkways of varying gradients is assessed. The study concludes that, compared with our method, conventional buffer analysis and network distance analysis over-estimate the walking accessibility of private housing to neighbourhood open space in Hong Kong by about 2–8%. Despite Hong Kong’s compact built environment, about 15% of the total number of residential blocks cannot reach a neighbourhood open space within 5 minutes of walking (equivalent to the local planning standard of 400 metres of walking on a flat terrain). These open space-deficient neighbourhoods comprise mostly the affluent or middle-class households in gated housing estates and in low-rise housing, but also some neighbourhoods of underprivileged families in old urban tenement buildings. Our assessment reveals the spatial bias of land use planning policy leading to these blackspots of open space shortfall in the territory. It requires urban planners to pay attention to the geographical barriers of a pedestrian network in redressing the inequitable distribution and achieving a pedestrian-friendly 3D city.

Investment in rapid transit infrastructure brings spatial changes in cities. Urban land uses compete to occupy precious, accessible locations around metro stations. This study explores the land use characteristics and spatial distribution of private development within a 500 m walking catchment of metro stations of Hong Kong between 1981 and 2017. It concludes that, while metro station continued to be a magnet to commercial-office development, especially within and near traditional CBD districts, they have gradually spread to the outer industrial districts. Housing uses were being pushed and pulled out of the urban core. Proximity to a metro station has a strong, positive impact on both Business and Hospitality Land Uses, relative to housing and industrial development. Planning policies have played a strong role in influencing the land use selection of private developers on land within the station catchment areas, leading to a high inter-station differentiation of land use mixes. Relaxation of government regulations, coupled with market circumstances, caused a recent wave of new development of hotels and serviced apartments which out-competed commercial-offices in occupying prime locations near stations.

This chapter posits that public space is the soul of a city, and it defines the essence of urbanity. Public space reflects the quality of life and the characteristics of its city and the people. It also provides the lens for analyzing the political economy of a high-density city like Hong Kong. This chapter illustrates how the planning, design and provision of urban open space are subject not only to the influences of changing political, social and economic forces but also to the development trajectory of the city that progresses from industrial capitalism to global capitalism. It will explore the emerging trends of public space provision and management in this city and will advocate the importance of urban planning in mitigating some undesirable consequences.

China's urbanization has revitalized grassroots governance under which millions of villagers have become increasingly keen to participate in grassroots elections and influence decision making in their village affairs. To maintain its political legitimacy over a rapidly transforming society, the authoritarian party-state has progressively promoted open, competitive grassroots elections in response to the increasing demand by villagers for more public participation. Based on in-depth field research in urbanizing villages in southern China, this article provides an empirical analysis of how the local state has adopted different interventionist strategies in elections to support villagers’ active participation while sustaining its direct leadership over daily village governance. Our findings explain why the recent development of open and transparent grassroots elections is reinforcing the ruling capacity of the socialist state rather than enhancing self-governance and grassroots democracy, although villagers now have more opportunities to defend their economic and social rights through elections.

Rapid urbanisation in China has led to a substantial decrease in agricultural land. To address this unsustainable form of urban development, the Chinese government has implemented the ‘Linkage’ Policy ( Zengjian Guagou), which requires any increase in new urban land by local governments to be compensated for with an equivalent amount of new arable land. This paper examines the institutional changes and the implications for China’s land production and development arising from this mechanism of transferring land development rights from the rural to the urban sectors. Using Chengdu as a case study, our research concludes that this institutional mechanism has conferred commodified and tradeable development rights on rural land, leading to the emergence and direct involvement of new players in village land consolidation, resettlement of affected villagers and, indirectly, in the supply of new urban land. Process efficiency has been improved with the local governments, developers and village collectives capitalising on their niches in village improvement projects. The conventional state-led model of land production is enriched with bottom-up market initiatives, and villagers have more choices to realise their land property rights under the dual land market. Land use efficiency has been enhanced by the reallocation of construction land potential. However, infringements of villagers’ interests and negative impacts on balanced regional development under this policy were also found.

How to make a better use of derelict industrial sites mostly occupied by state-owned enterprises has presented an increasing challenge to urban regeneration of many Chinese cities. Drawing from the experiences of a landmark project (Xinyi Club) in Guangzhou City, this study examines the course of adaptive reuse of an industrial land and its repercussions on reshaping the urban renewal strategy of the city. We argue that industrial land restructuring requires a pragmatic partnership of the local state with the occupiers and market players, and its flexible decision-making to overcome the constraints of regulatory institutions. Urban regeneration strategy of Chinese cities requires some fundamental transformations of the governing institutions and systems to remove the barriers against bottom-up initiatives in order to expedite the pace of redevelopment. First-mover advantage of the project proponents and the support of local government accounted for the success of the development project in this study. It may not be easily replicable because it is an outcome of exception rather than norm.

China’s nationwide “New Countryside Construction” policy promotes integrated urban-rural development by spending public resources to improve infrastructure and social services in the rural areas. Although its primary aim is to revitalize agricultural production and enhance peasants’ livelihood, this policy has had many unexpected consequences for urban growth and local governance. This study examines the local implementation of this policy and its impact on urban transformation and local state building. Based on an in-depth analysis of local governance restructuring in the Guangzhou Luogang District, the study explores how the local authority has shifted its strategy from a single-minded pursuit of industrial-led development to a full-fledged administrative agenda, through engaging the participation of village organizations and villagers in land management and social welfare provisions. Reflecting on the GLD experience, this study proposes a new perspective for interpreting the transformation of local governance under China’s new strategy for urbanizing the rural countryside.

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-epb-10.1177_2399808320932575 for Walking accessibility to neighbourhood open space in a multi-level urban environment of Hong Kong by Bo-Sin Tang, Kenneth KH Wong, Kenneth SS Tang and Siu Wai Wong in EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-2-epb-10.1177_2399808320932575 for Walking accessibility to neighbourhood open space in a multi-level urban environment of Hong Kong by Bo-Sin Tang, Kenneth KH Wong, Kenneth SS Tang and Siu Wai Wong in EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science

How to integrate millions of migrant workers into local communities remains a core challenge in China's urban transformation. Recently some cities, driven by a national policy of integrated metropolitan development, have aggressively engaged in the redevelopment of urbanizing villages (chengzhongcun) to promote formalization and desegregation. This article adopts a historical micro‐perspective to examine the actual role of urbanizing villages in city making, through an in‐depth analysis of how migrants and villagers have struggled since the 1980s for symbiotic co‐existence during various stages of urbanization. It argues that state‐led village redevelopment has created more problems than it has solved. Redevelopment eliminates some of the spatial and institutional separations characterizing Chinese socialist villages by dismantling barriers hindering formalization and marketization of collective village land, but this produces new social inequalities and tensions as it uproots pre‐existing self‐governing communities to facilitate spontaneous grassroots rural‐to‐urban transition for villagers and migrants. To cope with these problems, intervention to resolve the emerging problems of Chinese cities must consider a fundamental policy shift, away from sole reliance on the means of formalization and integration, to greater emphasis on the benefits of informality and segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian level wind environment is affected by stagnated airflow in high-density cities. This study provides an understanding of the effects of building height and porosity size on pedestrian level wind comfort. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique is utilized to reproduce wind flow around buildings at pedestrian level, and new wind comfort criteria for a low wind environment are adopted to evaluate wind comfort. More specifically, the Steady Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) renormalization group (RNG) k–e turbulence model is employed in this study, and the accuracy of the simulation results are assured by validation against the wind tunnel test data. The influence of different building heights and porosity sizes on wind comfort around an isolated building and a group of buildings are subsequently examined. It is shown that an increase building height could improve wind comfort inside the site boundary for both the isolated building and group of buildings. Furthermore, the wind comfort benefits increased when porosity is on the first floor compared to when it is on the second floor. Moreover, larger porosity size generally results in better wind comfort than smaller porosity size. From a practical view point, this study provides information for city planners and architects to use in the improvement of pedestrian level wind comfort, without losing land use efficacy.

This study assesses the externality of three new master-planned housing estate development projects on an old residential area in Hong Kong. Replicating the methodology of an event study, this paper presents the changes to the market values and the turnover of property transactions of the apartments in the existing neighbourhood before and after the successive completion of these three new projects over a period of 10 years. Our findings have identified a diverse picture about the impacts of these new housing estates on the neighbourhood. Positive externalities occur under specific circumstances related to the facility provision, spatial design and interfacing with the neighbourhood and background of the new projects. Housing externality does not depend only on the degree of geographical proximity. The policy implication is that urban planning can expand the positive spillover of infill redevelopment not only by replacing the urban dis-amenities by new buildings, but also through a responsive and beneficial integration of the new development with the existing neighbourhood.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review land/real estate registration practice in Hong Kong, and make an in-depth comparison with Mainland China and finally provide helpful suggestions for the government. Design/methodology/approach Research methods including document analysis/review and comparative study are used in this paper. Findings The main findings focus on the problems existing in the mainland, including narrow query subject, single way of query, limited query time, and lacking of incentive mechanism. Helpful suggestions for real estate registration system in Mainland China are offered based on the comparative study. Practical implications The unified registration system can improve the efficiency of administrative institutions to ensure an open and transparent environment of property right registration, which helps prevent the relevant departments from abusing administrative power and harming the interests of obligees. The findings of this research can serve as a useful reference for policy makers to improve the unified registration system in China. Originality/value The registration system/mechanism determines the efficiency and effectiveness of real estate/land market. However, land registration and query in some countries such as Mainland China have institutional problems which hinder the sustained and healthy development of the real estate industry. The value of this paper is to propose constructive suggestions for such countries/regions by comparing and learning from a good model.

China’s ongoing urbanization has profoundly reshaped local governance with an increasing emphasis on reducing urban-rural inequalities through public investment in the rural areas in order to enhance the wellbeing of villagers. Drawing from more than one decade of intensive field research in a peri-urban area of Guangzhou, our study elucidates how the process of village urbanization has developed into a tri-partite partnership between the local state, the village organizations and the villagers in village asset management and welfare provision. This collaborative model presents an alternative approach to the top-down, state-led urbanization model which has notoriously led to landless villagers and economic dispossession in village urbanization. It also differs from the bottom-up, village corporatist model which tends to oppose integrated urban-rural development. This study attempts to conceptualize the delicate interdependency of the local state, the village collectives and villagers. Our findings offer new insights into the restructuring of state-village relations and explain its implications for community capacity building in periurban China.

This study evaluates the underlying logic of urban planning behind the inequitable geographical distribution of public open space in Hong Kong. Existing open spaces and areas zoned as open spaces are found to have distinct patterns of distribution. Fewer than half of Hong Kong’s 1737 public parks and recreation grounds were zoned as ‘Open Space’ in town plans. Three typical land-use zoning configurations adjoining the 1177 ‘Open Space’ zones are identified. A large proportion of Hong Kong’s ‘Open Space’ zones, particularly those with waterfront access, were located close to upmarket, low-density housing areas and mixed commercial-business zones, rather than to high-density mass housing zones. An historical review elucidates the influence of colonial politics, racial harmony, public hygiene and democratisation on open space planning and development in Hong Kong. Recreation is not the only social function of open space. The government’s latest planning and development strategies − expanding a network of new open spaces at strategic waterfront locations and near commercial/business zones, and encouraging private-sector participation in place promotion and urban marketing − may exacerbate the inequitable distribution of open space, encourage its commodification and deprive underprivileged communities of the right to conveniently access public space.

Compared with other newly developed urban areas, urban villages in China are in greater need for redevelopment. Governed by institutions inherited from the local-state-dominated dual land ownership system, the redevelopment of these villages follows a state-led land requisition system, which confers development rights to local governments while limiting the rights of village collectives. Two other complementary arrangements include the top-down land use planning system and the state-monopolized land transfer system. Although these institutional arrangements favor land conversion in greenfield development, they cannot be easily implemented in the village redevelopment process. By reviewing the redevelopment policies and practices, this study empirically examines the redevelopment of urban villages in Shenzhen during the policy period from 2004 to 2009 and adopts the transaction cost perspective in analyzing how state-led institutional arrangements have resulted in many time-consuming transactions and hindered the redevelopment of urban villages.

Urban renewal has become an essential part of the ongoing urban development in China. This study provides a citywide analysis on the spatial determinants of land redevelopment activities in the urban renewal processes in Shenzhen, China. Based on the concept of rent gap and a perspective of transaction costs, a conceptual framework is developed to understand land redevelopment behaviors and analyze how location factors, land property rights, land use status and urban planning collectively affect land redevelopment outcomes. Empirical analysis is conducted based on logistic regression models with unique parcel-level data of all urban renewal projects in the entire city of Shenzhen and in special economic zone (SEZ) and non-SEZ areas. This study shows that urban sites with high land rent gap levels and low transaction costs are more likely to be redeveloped earlier. Aside from location factors, land property rights, land use status and urban planning all have a significant influence on the spatial variation of land redevelopment activities. These factors have varied effects on land redevelopment in the SEZ and non-SEZ areas due to the institutional differences and development conditions in these two areas. The research findings suggest the need for further policy considerations to better guide land redevelopment toward sustainable development. Redevelopment policies and regulations should also consider the dissimilar redevelopment conditions of different regions.

The threshold effect refers to the presence of a tipping point at which incremental action triggers an abrupt change. It is ubiquitous in both the environment and society. In this study, we identify the threshold effects of the continuous renewal of an industrial area on nearby housing in Hong Kong. Rather than using hedonic or difference-in-differences models, threshold regression models are used to detect the changes in the price-distance gradient of apartments near an industrial redevelopment project over two decades. We found a significant change in the value of apartments located in close proximity to the redevelopment site after a critical mass of new office space was built. Differential responses are also found across geography and for different building types. A possible explanation for these effects is the gentrification of the entire neighborhood. It is likely that a new spatial mix of blue- and white-collar households emerged in the surrounding neighborhoods along with the development of industrial property. Different building features appeal to different housing classes, resulting in dissimilar price-distance responses of the apartments. Integrative spatial design and good connectivity of industrial redevelopment with its neighborhood can possibly generate a wider geographical spread of its positive spillover in urban regeneration.

A key theme in urban governance research is how neoliberalism reshapes the state–society relationship. Our study on Guangzhou, where urban regeneration through massive redevelopment of “villages-in-the-city” uncovered interactions between the state, market, and community in local governance, contributes to this debate. Based on intensive field research to analyze three projects, we find that what really controls neoliberal growth in China is not simply the authoritarian tradition of the socialist state but also the power of the indigenous village communities. Our findings suggest that state intervention for community building is vital for rebalancing power relations between the state, market, and community.

Residents wish to have outdoor spaces to enjoy walking, cycling, and other recreational activities, which are often hindered by the unfavorable thermal comfort conditions, especially in the summer. High building densities lower the average wind speed and this intensifies the urban heat island effects at city scale. The conscientious use of building morphology to create local thermal comfort zone at selected spots in a large precinct is becoming a pressing issue for sustainable urbanization. This paper is a proof of concept study via continuous monitoring of the pedestrian level winds and thermal parameters at two sample days in summer, which include instantaneous air temperature, globe temperature, wind speed and humidity. Three outdoor locations at an university campus are chosen and daytime thermal perceptions at the three sites were evaluated using PET (Physiological equivalent temperature). A PET based new index was defined, which is called the thermally-perceivable environmental parameter difference. By analyzing the simultaneous differences of radiant temperature, wind speed and air temperature between the monitored spots, it is shown that it was the wind speed and radiant temperature differences that were making significant differences in thermal comfort. This pilot study clearly indicates that wind amplification combined with shading effects can generate thermally comfortable conditions in the open ground floor beneath an elevated building, even on a sunny, hot summer day in a subtropical city. This finding helps to alert city planners of additional options available in precinct planning to encourage outdoor activities.

Urban waterfronts gain more attention in the 21 st century. While waterfront uses are often contested between the government and the community, the literature suggests that economic and property interests generally play significant roles in waterfront redevelopment. Relatively less emphasis is found in the literature to perceive the waterfront as a place for leisure and recreation. This study examines the changing missions for the Victoria Harbour waterfront in Hong Kong. Three epochs of harbour waterfront planning and development are discussed. It argues that leisure and recreational functions are provided in an auxiliary manner in all the three periods of waterfront development. The 19 th century Praya aimed at enhancing social order, improving harbour appearance, and providing public access. The 20 th century waterfront faced a competing demand between a place for tourism and a place for local people. The contemporary waterfront is further transformed under a selective logic, bringing tourists to the inner harbour waterfront and pushing local recreational needs to the outer harbour waterfront. The harbour waterfront is gradually emerging into a festival market type waterfront.

Urban renewal is an emerging issue in almost all developed cities with a long history. To revitalize the landscape and functions of old areas in these cities, many urban renewal projects have been launched by local governments in recent years. Site planning of renewal projects is the premise of redevelopment and is related to the success of future developments. This paper develops a framework of factors identified from relevant literature, which affect the decision-making process for sustainable land use planning of urban renewal projects. Three typical redevelopment projects in Hong Kong are studied to help provide an understanding of the practical operations of such projects and the actual factors involved. Based on the differences between the factors in the theoretical framework and the factors found in the real life cases, the work necessary for improving sustainable site planning in urban renewal projects is discussed.

Purpose – Urban renewal projects provide an effective channel for adjusting land-use allocation and improving land-use efficiency, which effectively increases land supply. The purpose of this paper is to support the decision-making process of sustainable land use in urban renewal projects. A GIS-based framework, consisting of a planning support model and a land information database, has been developed in a typical high-density city – Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative and quantitative combined methodology is designed for this research. Several research methods such as expert interviews, focus group meetings, and case studies and technical approaches such as GIS, MCA, and AHP are adopted in this research. Findings – General and sustainability criteria for land-use decision making in urban renewal along with associated data are identified, and an integrated approach to quantitatively assessing land-use suitability is developed. Research limitations/implications – The framework was developed in a loosely coupled form rather than a software package installed on a computer, and the development of the land information database was a time-consuming process as a large amount of data were collected, processed, and analyzed. Originality/value – Application of the proposed framework is reported by showing analyzed results of land-use suitability. The framework proves a useful tool for both practitioners and researchers involved in sustainable land use for urban renewal.

Urban renewal is a significant issue in developed urban areas, with a particular problem for urban planners being redevelopment of land to meet demand whilst ensuring compatibility with existing land use. This paper presents a geographic information systems (GIS)-based decision support tool (called LUDS) to quantitatively assess land-use suitability for site redevelopment in urban renewal areas. This consists of a model for the suitability analysis and an affiliated land-information database for residential, commercial, industrial, G/I/C (government/institution/community) and open space land uses. Development has occurred with support from interviews with industry experts, focus group meetings and an experimental trial, combined with several advanced techniques and tools, including GIS data processing and spatial analysis, multi-criterion analysis, as well as the AHP method for constructing the model and database. As demonstrated in the trial, LUDS assists planners in making land-use decisions and supports the planning process in assessing urban land-use suitability for site redevelopment. Moreover, it facilitates public consultation (participatory planning) by providing stakeholders with an explicit understanding of planners' views.

Open space planning is a common issue in urban studies. Under development pressures and urbanization, open space is prone to manipulation and erosion by governments and developers to achiev...

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, Chinese cities have undergone unprecedented urban expansion. The suburban landscape of these cities has changed dramatically – from traditionally agricultural to rapidly urbanizing. This paper sheds light on the urbanization process that rural villages have undergone through state-led land requisition. It identifies two physical manifestations of the Chinese countryside during the urbanization process: semi-urbanized villages and urban resettlement housing districts. Based on a case study of the suburban districts of Shanghai, it argues that these two emerging forms of suburban landscape differ not only in terms of their physical form and land-use structure, but also in many of the social, economic, cultural and organizational characteristics of these ex-rural communities. Through analysis of public data and observation from personal interview, the study concludes that state-led land requisition has been a dominant force in expediting the urbanization of the suburban areas of Chinese cities and that the complex interplay between state and market impetuses has led to the multi-faceted transformation of rural communities and to a complicated countryside profile.

China’s rapid urbanisation has prompted its government to explore new sustainable sources of public revenue to finance the continued demand for urban infrastructure and services. Property tax advocates have sought to take advantage of the real estate booms that have occurred since economic liberalisation by actively campaigning for a real property levy as an appropriate policy choice. Against this background, this study evaluates the prospect of implementing market-value-based property tax reforms in mainland China. Based on the new institutional economics perspective, it posits property tax as an institutional arrangement which requires complementary mechanisms in land registration, property appraisal, tax administration, social security and dispute resolution. Property tax reforms would not only necessitate technical changes, but would also have extensive social, political and legal repercussions for Chinese society.

This paper applies a system dynamics model for the sustainable land use and urban development in Hong Kong. The model is used to test the outcomes of development policy scenarios and make forecasts. It consists of five sub-systems including population, economy, housing, transport and urban/developed land, respectively. Two distinctively different development schemes concerning urban population density are simulated by the model and the findings are undertaken to verify the model through comparison with historical data and sensitivity check. The forecast timeframe is then expanded from 40 years to 300 years, providing a simulation period long enough to observe and study the “limits to growth” phenomenon and the impacts on development potential of Hong Kong. The modelling results are directly useful to compare different dynamic consequences brought by various policies and decisions, and are thus of great significance to achieving the goal of sustainable land use.

This study evaluates the land-use zoning and development of open space in the hyper-dense, land-hungry city of Hong Kong. The existing literature has generally found that its open space provision is unsatisfactory in both quality and quantity. The study fills the research gap by undertaking an archive research and interpreting the past zoning data from a total of 1573 statutory town plans published between 1965 and 2006. It elucidates how the current ungenerous provision of public open space can be attributed to a number of historical, political and institutional factors including: inefficient division of government responsibilities, lack of public representation, pro-growth planning ideology, revenue-maximizing land sale policy and privatization of urban space. This study concludes that the development of public open space has been prejudiced under the statutory planning system and land allocation process. It suggests that the shrinking of public open space may cause excessive development density that aggravates the deteriorating urban climate in Hong Kong.

The competitive strategy and advantage of building contractors is examined. In Hong Kong, just a few contractors have dominated the market of public housing construction, where prefabrication is mandatory. Does prefabrication technology lead to business success? Based on quantitative analysis of a questionnaire survey and its validation with interviews, we find that prefabrication by itself is not regarded as a sustainable source of competitive advantage. Instead, market share is the most statistically significant factor related to business growth. The experience curve theory suggests that, upon acquiring a critical volume of business, contractors have the opportunity to exploit economies of scale, bargaining power and learning to reduce costs to get more business. Through this iterative process, some contractors would manage to innovate their building process to make their supply chain management more efficient and effective than others', thus attaining competitive advantage in cost leadership and gettin...

This study examines the current prospects for and obstacles facing the implementation of social impact assessment (SIA) and participatory planning in the People's Republic of China. During the past two decades, rapid urbanisation and the conversion of rural land for urban development have led to numerous social conflicts and tensions between the Chinese government and its people. SIA and public participation in development decisions have received increasing attention from the Chinese authorities as possible ways to tackle the problem. Based on a Guangzhou case study, this paper argues that the assessment and mitigation of adverse impacts on the community from urban development have been carried out with different objectives, core values and principles when compared with those in Western societies. It concludes that the poor prospects of SIA and collaborative planning in China lie not only in the weak framework for environmental legislation, but also in all institutions concerning state–society relations, the socialist governing ideology and traditional Chinese culture.

This exploratory study examines the relationship between internal space, shared space and private housing prices. Housing floor area is an ambiguous concept in Hong Kong because it covers a possible exaggeration of the amount of ‘private space’ exclusively enjoyed by the owner and an unidentifiable portion of ‘public space’ shared with other owners within the development. Using hedonic pricing models, this study has found that different distributions between private and shared space command different values from the housing buyers. Shared communal space generally exerts a downward pressure on housing prices. The buyers are willing to pay more for the private space and some desirable forms of communal space. A higher willingness-to-pay for the desirable attributes such as clubhouse indicates that the Hong Kong people are increasingly concerned about the quality of living space in the built environment. This study suggests a need of further research into the exact measurement and the different forms of housing space rather than simply taking the stated floor space figures for granted.

PurposeThis paper aims to present the authors' opinions about the impacts of globalization on real estate profession and some essential changes of real estate business service.Design/methodology/approachThe arguments are based on the authors' interpretation and first‐hand experience of the contemporary business environment. A case study example to illustrate the changing requirements for professional real estate services in mainland China is provided.FindingsEconomic globalization creates new opportunities in real estate market, product and service. It has the effect of blurring geographical and product boundaries. Real estate is increasingly integrated with the financial market. Global capital has transformed local property market practices. Real estate professionals have to re‐orientate themselves so that they can move up the service value‐ladder and avoid being marginalized under intense competition in a global market.Practical implicationsRe‐orientation of professional practices involves an expansion of one's geographical and market knowledge beyond the home boundary. It also requires a dramatic change of mind‐set, work attitude, social awareness and lifestyle.Originality/valueThe paper proposes a competence model. Professionals should sell “competence”, which is built on “service proper” (knowledge and skills) and “service infrastructure” (technology and organization).

Private finance initiative (PFI), as a form of public/private partnership (PPP), helps to contract the private sector to governmental projects. In contrast to traditional public financed projects, PFI projects are procured by allowing a private sector entity to take the responsibility to design, build, finance, and operate (DBFO) an asset for a contract period of up to several decades. Moreover, banks are perceived to take the leading role in financing PFI projects. Since project financing involves credit assessment of loan applicants, banks have employed popular credit scoring models to assess their creditworthiness. Although the existing models are useful for credit scoring, new models have to emerge in response to ever-changing business practices. This paper therefore aims at introducing the application of data envelopment analysis (DEA) as an alternative credit-scoring model. Unlike traditional credit-scoring building on a formula where weights to a set of criteria are assigned subjectively, DEA will automatically generate the relative weights for analysis. However, incorporating DEA demands additional considerations, which are discussed in this paper. Finally, examples are demonstrated for illustrating this alterative approach to credit scoring by DEA. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The paper examines the evolution, implementation and performance of the green belt in the compact and land-hungry city of Hong Kong. The green belt in Hong Kong comprises over 25% of all the land areas under the statutory land-use zoning plans. Its planning policy declares that there is a presumption against development in this land-use zone. Based upon historical study, cross-sectional examination of 109 statutory zoning plans and quantitative analysis of 1230 planning application cases, this study has evaluated whether the green belt was indeed treated as a non-building area for the purpose of landscape and countryside conservation. The conclusion is that the actual planning intention of the green belt has been ambivalent and flexible and it is a transition zone rather than a zone for conservation in Hong Kong.

Land use planning plays an important role in achieving sustainable urban development. One of the problems planners frequently encounter is the absence of an integrated quantitative approach to assessing land-use suitability and supporting land use planning (site level), particularly in urban renewal. This paper develops a geographic information system (GIS)-based framework to solve this problem. The framework consists of three main modules: land information database, planning/policy control mechanism, and model of land-use suitability analysis (LUSA). In the process of developing this framework, three tasks are completed. First, key factors affecting land-use decision making in urban renewal planning are identified and 20 of them are quantitatively examined from five perspectives of land attributes: inherent/physical, locational, social, economic, and environmental. Second, two submodels, namely, the criterion-value generation model and suitability assessment model are designed and built for LUSA ...

This study examines the particular role, services and functions of property agents in the housing markets in mainland China. Since the implementation of housing market reforms, cities on the Chinese mainland have transferred from a centrally-directed, welfare-oriented housing system to a more decentralized, market-based one. Commodification of housing has expanded the opportunity of new market intermediaries to service the growing urban housing markets. Yet there appears to be little research on these agents, which bear similarity in name, but not exactly in operation, to those in a market society. Based upon insights from new institutional economics, this study examines how the existing institutions in China have constrained and facilitated their services in the housing transaction process. This micro-analytical study provides a different means towards understanding the market transformation of a socialist housing system.

Housing reforms in China are often conceived to have engendered a gradual shift towards a market system. New institutions have been introduced to enable decentralized, monetarized and privatized allocation of housing units. This study explores the emergence, growth and downfall of an intermediary service (known as ‘fang wu yin hang’) created spontaneously by real estate agents to facilitate housing transactions in the Chinese cities. Although this new institution looked capable of strengthening the rationality, efficiency, transparency and impersonality of China’s housing market, it was abandoned soon after its inception. The failure of this transient service suggests the presence of some social institutions, which could have blocked China’s progress towards a full-fledged market system in the housing sector.

While the importance of urban management in achieving sustainable urban development is increasingly recognised as being significant by urban managers and the general public, there is still a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding in China about the substance of urban management, which impedes effective implementation. This paper examines some of the problems encountered in urban management practice in Chinese cities, and highlights the importance of a holistic conceptual understanding, and a strategic model for enhancing urban management capacities in the Chinese context. Focusing on a case study of Guangzhou Development District (GDD), the paper demonstrates that the application of a set of measurable evaluative criteria for assessing urban management performance is useful in improving urban management practice.

This paper reviews the literature on appraisal bias and summarizes three hypotheses for systematic bias: behavior contention, options-value, and different-base-of-valuation. A case study based in Hong Kong is presented that portrays empirical evidence of appraisal bias in land premiums. Land premium appraisals are analyzed because they can help keep the depreciation factor constant and provide good pairs of transaction price and estimate. These appraisals are collected from published estimates, which eliminate the client-agent heuristic. Among the 343 appraisals of land premiums for 109 auctions of land in Hong Kong from 1991 to 1999, evidence of an 8% systematic appraisal downward bias is found in appraisers' estimates against the final bid prices. Although it can be explained plausibly by appraiser-behavior contention, there is also empirical evidence supporting the other two hypotheses. Although appraisal bias has been intensively studied since the 1990s, random bias and systematic bias are not well differentiated, but inextricably intertwined. Systematic bias is defined as a persistent over- or under-estimation of property value. The dominant study on appraisal bias, however, is on random bias. Random bias is mainly produced by appraisal smoothing (downside bias of variance), which is commonly explained by valuation timing and adaptive behavior. Systematic bias, on the other hand, has been explained by behavioral contention, such as the client's influence and the minimization of the cost of justifications. Systematic bias in property and land appraisals is of paramount importance to stakeholders of real estate markets. The problem does not lie on the bias itself, but on the persistence. Since random bias is ubiquitous and does not greatly affect investors' decisions, provided that the margin of error is small. However, systematic bias will seriously affect investors' judgments and benefits. The aim of this paper, besides reviewing the literature on appraisal bias, is to put forward two more alternative hypotheses, which can well explain the systematic bias in land premium appraisals. These two hypotheses are testable and have empirical evidence, while behavioral theories are mostly tested experimentally. It requires, however, further critical tests to identify which explanation is correct. The arrangement of this paper is as follows. First there is a systematic review of the literature on appraisal bias and on the other two hypotheses. Next, the case study on land premium appraisals in Hong Kong is presented, which include the background of land premium appraisals in Hong Kong along with the data and results of the persistent under-estimation of land premium. There is then a discussion of the phenomenon via the three hypotheses along with the empirical evidence. The paper then closes with concluding remarks. Literature Review Exhibit 1 illustrates the hierarchy of the alternative explanations of appraisal bias. Random bias versus systematic bias is differentiated. However, appraisers' behavior is not the only cause of systematic bias. A large number of studies revealed random bias (variance in property appraisals) and found about 5%-10% average margin of error between sale price and appraised value (Matysiak and Wang, 1995; Hutchison et al., 1996; and Brown, Matysiak, and Shephard, 1998). Since appraisals involve uncertainty, a random margin of error in appraisals is totally understandable and inevitable. Judgments in the courts in the United Kingdom also reflected that a 10%-15% margin of error in valuation is accepted (Crosby, Lavers, and Murdoch, 1998). Geltner (1998) described that the margin of error is explained by three causes: (1) appraisal smoothing (downside bias of variance); (2) overreaction (upside bias of variance); and (3) purely random error (noise). Almost all studies on the random bias in appraisals predict a downward biased variance estimate (i. …

This paper aims at introducing the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to input–output (I–O) analyses. I–O tables have been developed for many decades and have been used extensively to describe and explain economic, social, and environmental issues. One of its major benefits is the derivation of intermediate inputs and demands, which offers more information for data analysis. On the other hand, DEA is argued to be an objective method addressing decision problems. In this paper, it helps to calculate the relative efficiency for each industrial sector based on inputs and outputs of an I–O table. This has extended the static I–O tables to dynamic applications. In order to demonstrate this, five objectives are created to examine repercussions of consumptions and inputs placed on the construction sector in terms of the relative degree of reliance. A numerical example based on the Japanese case is discussed. Based upon the results, strategies and policies can be formulated to overcome difficulties and problems faced by the construction related companies, the construction sector as a whole, and the government as well.

International land-use concepts are transformed to suit local circumstances. What is truly common after local adaptation becomes arguable. This paper examines application of a British land-use planning concept, green belt, in the ex-colonial city of Hong Kong. Through examining its local history and planning decisions for village housing development within such zones, this study reveals the ambiguity and flexibility of this land-use concept in conserving the natural landscape and open countryside. It highlights the conflicts and compromises of green belt planning policy in connection with countryside protection, local politics and development pressures. The conclusion is that the green belt zone coincides with its overseas counterpart in name only; its substance and implementation are drastically diverse across cities.

Rapid economic globalization presents major challenges to the sustainable development of ‘development zones’ in many countries. Development zones in China evolved from the concept of Export Processing Zones (EPZs) in the western world. After China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation, however, they have lost their special preferential status to the overseas investors in terms of promotion of industrialization and inward investment. With the changing global and national circumstances, spatial, economic and social transformations are taking place in these development zones. Given the vast number of development zones in China, the successful integration of these development zones into the regional and urban contexts will have great implications on the economic and social development of China. Based upon a case study of Guangzhou Development District (GDD) which is one of the earliest development zones of China, this paper examines the evolution of development zones in the mainland with particular reference to the development problems associated with their urbanisation in recent years. Although this paper primarily focuses on GDD, the findings and discussion will provide insights for other development zones of China in reviewing their development strategies as most of them are sharing similar development problems.

The construction industry is a very competitive high-risk business. Many problems, such as little cooperation, lack of trust, and ineffective communication resulting in adversarial relationships between contracting parties, are facing the construction industry. Partnering is perhaps one of the most innovative developments in delivering a project efficiently and reducing construction disputes. It provides a sound basis for a “win-win” climate and synergistic teamwork. Project partnering in the Hong Kong construction industry has gained in popularity since 1994. A number of potential factors contributing to partnering success have emerged and deserve further study. This paper presents a review of the development of the partnering concept in general and identifies critical success factors for partnering projects from the Hong Kong perspective in particular. Through a postal questionnaire survey geared toward project participants with hands-on partnering experience, the opinions of various parties—clients, co...

This paper addresses a naive question: why do the new housing units in Hong Kong always leak? Conventional responses to this question, including slack construction supervision, poor workmanship, low construction cost, tight building schedule, are only superficial answers. This study addresses this question within the context of technology development and industrial organization within the house-building industry. The local building industry is notorious for its poor use of automated technology. This is reinforced by the existence of a fragmented industry that relies widely and increasingly on the use of subcontracting and procurement of labour services. Low technological applications in the house-building industry are further institutionalized by the practices of local developers, university educators and the government. This study explains why an off-site, assembly line mode of mass production of buildings cannot take off, and why the assembly work has to rely on human dexterity rather than technological precision. It is argued that the relationship between technological impediment and fragmentation of the building industry results in a vicious cycle. Unless this structural relationship is broken, poor building quality and technological backwardness will continue to linger in Hong Kong.