This dissertation examines impacts of private sector involvement in public space delivery and management on publicness in Hong Kong through two case studies, namely The Avenue and The Avenue of Stars. Previous literature on Privately-owned public space (POPS) often criticize such involvement leads to negative outcomes. This dissertation reveals these outcomes may vary depending on various factors, including owner(s) of the POPS, type of the space, delivery mechanism of the space. Judgement on POPS may not be as absolute as what suggested by previous literature. Moreover, previous literature often focuses on Western context. This dissertation evaluates POPS in the non-Western world. It considers influences of unique Chinese culture and norms in POPS publicness evaluation, providing an alternative understanding of POPS apart from Western narratives.

This dissertation discusses the concept of privately owned public spaces (POPS) in urban planning, and explains how the narratives of POPS from the West could be ill-suited to the non-Western contexts. Looking into how different groups of actors understand/create meanings of POPS during a protest that has happened inside a shopping mall in Hong Kong, this dissertation gives a summary of both the discursive and visual findings. It analyses how alternative understandings could be created in the non-Western contexts, followed by some reflection on the wider West/non-West social context debate, as well as the analytical approach of future research.

This dissertation aims to provide some empirical qualitative research into the interactions between Hong Kong immigrants under the British National (Overseas) Visa scheme and the London housing market. Results from structured questionnaire reveal that property location is shown to be the most significant housing determinant for new Hongkongers. However, spatially, there are signs of coethnic clustering in traditionally ‘homogenous’ neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, targeted interviews suggest that the London housing market is unable to accommodate to the housing demands of BNO immigrants both quantitatively and qualitatively. This dissertation concludes with a reflection of the London planning for housing system in terms of Local Planmaking and the Strategic Housing Market Assessment, and proposes several recommendations for the mid- to longterm planning for the housing impact brought by the continuing influx of Hong Kong immigrants.

This work aims to solve a problem of introducing electric cargo bikes to Hong Kong using computer simulation technique called Agent Based Modelling - at a much lower cost compared to field study due to policy, geographical and operational restrictions.

The trajectory of urban development in Hong Kong has produced a culture where property development has become a powerful force in society that has shaped its key institutions and built up the ethos of property accumulation as the measure of ultimate success. Driven by three key institutions: the government, property developers, and the MTR, Hong Kong’s urban railway company, urban development has massively transformed the territory’s neighbourhoods and communities. This dissertation contributes to the under-researched juncture between urban transformation and community relations in the context of a development-dominant culture by considering the case study of Sai Ying Pun, a Hong Kong neighbourhood that has undergone such urban change. Through a mixed method approach the perspectives of residents and businesses from two key communities, as well as experts, are studied. The findings reveal that the impacts of urban change are not experienced evenly by each community, and even if displacement does not occur, the benefits do not fall symmetrically. The research also demonstrates the continued faith placed in the power of the institutionalised property development apparatus to enhance the urban landscape and to improve the lives of residents, as well as the enduring belief amongst Hong Kong people of its potential as a vehicle for upwards social mobility.