Participatory governance has been increasingly promoted in China since 2006. Whilst the state appears to be supportive of nurturing self-governance at the community level through providing financia...

This paper reviews the emergence of community-based housing solutions in Hong Kong, including the Community Housing Movement (CHM) which was formally launched in late 2017. This phenomenon shares some of the features of community-based housing solutions in other places, such as collaboration between government, market and civil society actors to tackle housing undersupply problems. Nevertheless, there are some locally distinctive drivers behind this phenomenon. On one hand, community housing projects have been catalysed by the plight of low-income immigrant households in the private rental market, who live in poor-quality sub-divided flats. On the other hand, these projects were initiated by a local philanthropist, before being institutionalised by community organisations and attracting financial support from the government. The review concludes by emphasising the importance of going beyond the rhetoric of community housing and focusing on the root causes of affordability problems, since lower-middle income households are unlikely to benefit from current forms of community housing solutions, yet struggle with the lack of affordable homeownership opportunities in a neoliberal housing market.

Growing demand for private renting has stimulated debates on rent regulation in many cities. In Hong Kong, grassroots groups have lobbied for stronger rent regulation, in the context of rapidly rising rents. This paper seeks to interpret the evolving dynamics of the rent regulation debate in Hong Kong, from the 1990s to the present. In particular, the paper seeks to interpret changes in the lobbying strategies of advocacy groups, through applying theories from the sociological literature on framing processes. The findings reveal that advocates and opponents disagree because of divergent prognostic frames, despite their similar diagnosis of rental affordability problems. Furthermore, existing motivational frames are unable to mobilise support from a broader range of households. These insights are relevant not only to debates on housing policy, but also to other public policy areas, where the degree of resonance of motivational frames helps explain the change in momentum of policy advocacy work.

This paper explores the relationship between flexibility in spatial governance partnerships and their legitimacy. While partnerships have become increasingly prevalent, questions have been raised about their accountability or ‘input’ legitimacy. However, recent research highlights how multiple norms of legitimacy exist and how flexible delivery of aspired outcomes may confer ‘output’ legitimacy to governance processes. This paper explores these issues through examining the delivery of a major urban extension at the edge of Cambridge City, in the East of England. It makes the case that a particular dimension of flexibility, namely flexibility in resource deployment, has been crucial to delivering outcomes underpinned by the shared vision of sustainable communities. This suggests that future research on partnerships could benefit from a more refined analysis of the different ways in which flexibility is exercised and how these may enhance or detract from the legitimacy of partnership arrangements.

Negative stereotypes of older people can have detrimental impacts on their mental health, hence better understanding of ageism is needed to combat ageism more effectively. Nevertheless, existing studies on ageism largely focus on the workplace, while relatively less is known about younger people’s generalizations of older people in everyday neighbourhood contexts. This study investigated young adults’ stereotypes of retired older people in the context of high-density residential neighbourhoods in Hong Kong, through 23 qualitative in-depth interviews. The findings counter the misconception that ageism is less prevalent in Asian societies, while uncovering young adults’ novel interpretations of traditional cultural norms of respect towards older people. The findings also reveal more complex intersections between ageism, classism, and prejudice towards worldview-dissimilar older people. These findings suggest the need to broaden the scope of ageism-reduction interventions, to tackle not only age-related prejudice but other forms of prejudice. Paying closer attention to intersectional forms of prejudice can also facilitate the design of more inclusive intergenerational programs and intergenerational public spaces, both locally and internationally.

Opposition to planned housing projects can lead to considerable delays. Hong Kong is characterized by an executive-dominant planning system, whereby the government possesses strong planning powers, while elected district councillors play an advisory role only. Curiously, planning delays are fairly common. The above paradox is analysed in this paper through examining a major dispute over public housing development in Hong Kong. This dispute involved lengthy processes of bargaining, which were vulnerable to legitimacy challenges. Councillors acted strategically by tapping into prevailing social values to frame the legitimacy of bargaining processes. Despite discontent with these informal bargaining processes, the dispute has not evolved into more radical challenges to existing governance arrangements. The paper concludes by considering how hegemonic discourses of planning efficiency may have constrained the emergence of radical contention, which adds to broader debates about the conditions which shape the trajectories and transformative prospects of contentious urban developments.