Hong Kong

Urban studies scholarship on Hong Kong fairly explains the urban transformations and transitions during and after the colonial period, analyzes the role of Hong Kong in the global network of cities, and interprets the present challenges and uncertainties faced by the city. Located in East Asia, Hong Kong, a former British colonial city, lies on the southern coastline of China. With a population of over seven million, as of 2020, and a relatively small land area of around a thousand square kilometers, Hong Kong is one of the densest cities in the world. Due to the stages of colonization, Hong Kong is composed of three regions: Hong Kong Island (ceded in the 1840s), Kowloon Peninsula (ceded in the 1860s), and the New Territories (leased in 1898 for 99 years). After the sovereignty transfer in 1997, Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region of China under the principle of “One Country, Two Systems,” an arrangement by which Hong Kong can maintain its own legal, administrative, and economic systems until 2047. Controversial policies and practices that promote regional integration, such as migration policies and cross-boundary infrastructure, have provoked political crises. Hong Kong is praised as a world city and is home to the super-rich; meanwhile, severe inequality and social injustice, as manifested in land, housing, and development challenges, together with political discontent, have triggered urban struggles. This selective bibliography firstly introduces the academic work on the urban context, then surveys the published works that delve into complex urban controversies. After introducing entry texts in General Overviews and reference materials in Journals and Data Sources for the students of urban studies, the bibliography proceeds in four thematic parts, namely Urban Law, Urban Politics, Urban Landscape, and Urban Processes and Controversies, each of which is divided into sections. It presents the works on law (Land System and Planning System) and politics (Urban Governance and Urban Geopolitics) of the city, which have their material manifestations in the urban space. These are the institutional foundations of the urban landscape, whose part consists of Urban Materialities and Mobilities, Housing, Restructuring the Urban Economy, and New Towns. Works on urban processes and controversies are finally presented, covering Financialization, Gentrification and Urban Redevelopment, Heritage Conservation, Contested Urban Citizenship, Injustice and Inequality, and Contentious Politics.