Urban renewal in Hong Kong: transition from development corporation to renewal authority

This paper assesses the record of Hong Kongʹs Land Development Corporation and considers the reasons for its recent transformation into an Urban Renewal Authority. After reviewing the Corporationʹs first two phases of projects launched in 1988 and 1992, the paper examines how the Hong Kong Government failed to equip it with adequate powers and resources. As a result, although the LDC certainly established itself as an important actor in urban redevelopment, its own flagship projects took much longer to deliver than originally anticipated and did not produce any major restructuring of land use patterns or transport networks. This recent experience of urban renewal in Hong Kong offers more general lessons for renewal policy elsewhere. These concern the nature of public–private relations, the importance of effective linkages between strategic planning and implementation and the dangers of uncritical policy transfer from one locale to another.