Study and Reflection on the Spatial Features of Commercial Spaces in Hong Kong’s Public Housing Communities
XU Yueli, LIU Jianlin, KE Chunjian, YUAN Qi
Abstract：
In view of its colonial background and urbanization development process, Hong Kong promoted a series of housing scheme to improve citizens’living conditions, forming unique public housing development patterns and commercial spatial features. Against the trends of globalization and consumerism, welfare systems used to play vital role in public housing community development, face unprecedented challenges (i.e., social risks such as the aging community and the huge gap between the rich and the poor, and social contradictions such as strong population mobility and social apathy), making public housing face gentrification issues. Based on the investigation of public housing communities in Hong Kong, this study summarizes six commercial spaces, covering traditional street shops, roofdeck shops, exotic street shops, small-scale commercial complexes, large-scale commercial complexes and modern commercial street malls, and compares HK public housing schemes in different periods of time together with their influencing political, economic and social factors, aiming to generalize the logic of spatial pattern in public housing commercial facilities. We find that, in the policy aspect, public housing scheme relieved housing shortage through adding provision and state selective intervention and flexible control to against gentrification; in the financial aspect, public rental housing scheme acquired funding through selling subsidized housing, and public department could positively intervene with market force through power transferring and constraint mechanisms to against rising prices; in the social collaboration aspect, public housing scheme raised the proportion of small-size apartment to relieve housing shortage, and cooperated with social organizations to balance welfare and profitable commerce. This enlightenment tends to generate suggestions for cities and regions where undergoing welfare community development in dealing with gentrification of daily commercial space for achieving pluralistic and inclusive community environments.