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

This paper assesses the record of Hong Kong's Land Development Corporation and considers the reasons for its recent transformation into an Urban Renew al Authority. After reviewing the Corporation's first two phases of project s launched in 1988 and 1992, the paper examines how the Hong Kong Governmen t failed to equip it with adequate powers and resources. As a result, altho ugh the LDC certainly established itself as an important actor in urban red evelopment, its own flagship projects took much longer to deliver than orig inally 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 c oncern the nature of public-private relations, the importance of effective linkages between strategic planning and implementation and the dangers of u ncritical policy transfer from one locale to another. (C) 2001 Elsevier Sci ence Ltd. All rights reserved.