Building Colonial Hong Kong - Speculative Development and Segregation in the City (Hardcover)

In the 1880s, Hong Kong was a booming colonial entrepot, with many European, especially British, residents living in palatial mansions in the Mid-Levels and at the Peak. But it was also a ruthless migrant city where Chinese workers shared bedspaces in the crowded tenements of Taipingshan. Despite persistent inequality, Hong Kong never ceased to attract different classes of sojourners and immigrants, who strived to advance their social standing by accumulating wealth, especially through land and property speculation. In this engaging and extensively illustrated book, Cecilia L. Chu retells the 'Hong Kong story' by tracing the emergence of its 'speculative landscape' from the late nineteenth to the early decades of the twentieth century. Through a number of pivotal case studies, she highlights the contradictory logic of colonial urban development: the encouragement of native investment that supported a laissez-faire housing market, versus the imperative to segregate the populations in a hierarchical, colonial spatial order. Crucially, she shows that the production of Hong Kong's urban landscapes was not a top-down process, but one that evolved through ongoing negotiations between different constituencies with vested interests in property. Further, her study reveals that the built environment was key to generating and attaining individual and collective aspirations in a racially divided, highly unequal, but nevertheless upwardly mobile, modernizing colonial city.

General

Imprint:	Routledge
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Planning, History and Environment Series
Release date:	April 2022
First published:	2022
Authors:	Cecilia L. Chu
Dimensions:	246 x 174mm (L x W)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	228
ISBN-13:	978-1-138-34465-5
Categories:	Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Development studies Books > Earth & environment > The environment > General Books > Arts & Architecture > Architecture > Landscape art & architecture > City & town planning - architectural aspects Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Area / regional studies > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Homelessness Books > Earth & environment > Regional & area planning > Urban & municipal planning > General
LSN:	1-138-34465-6
Barcode:	9781138344655

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