Treating the Symptoms - A Critical Review of ... - Civic Exchange

public attached little cultural or aesthetic value to pre-war shop houses (tong lau), and forgood reason. 10 Those buildings had offered very basic living conditions, and were associatedwith poverty. Their narrow frontages admitted little daylight, they lacked modern toilets,and had historically been badly overcrowded:“A typical tong lou was three to five stories high and constructed on long narrowlots roughly 15 feet wide and 40 feet long. Most tenements were leased by floor butwere further subdivided into smaller units or cubicles for subletting. Each cubicle wasoccupied by a family or several people. The minimum standard of 34.4 square feet peradult as recommended by the government in a 1935 ordinance was never met… Anold three-storey tenement in Wan Chai slept ninety people, many of them in bunkspiled up in six tiers. In 1960, a family of seven living in one of these old tenementsshared one cubicle with bunk beds in seven tiers.” 11Far from being seen as cultural assets, old shop houses and tenement buildings were perceivedas an embarrassment to a modern city. In 1985, when the LDC was first proposed in theGovernor’s policy address, Legislative Councillor Jackie Chan commented:“I am most pleased to learn that Government has placed much concern on theredevelopment of old districts in the urban area… there are still many pre-warand post-war buildings in these districts which are very old and dilapidated.Should these buildings be still allowed to continue to exist in their present form,they would not only cause a bad image on the city’s outlook but also form a greatcontrast between the old and the new.” 12When the Land Development Corporation bill was introduced to the Legislative Council(LegCo) in 1987, the South China Morning Post opined:“Gone will be the days when ‘nightsoil ladies’ have to climb several flights of stairsbefore dawn to collect sewage from the pre-war tenements which lack toilets.Replacing the eyesores will be handsome skyscrapers.” 13Nowadays, heritage activists campaign to rescue pre-war buildings from demolition, suchas the Blue House in Wan Chai. Some even perceive nondescript post-war tenements ashaving social value for their associated street life and “collective memory”. Heritage is justone of the many issues which now animate discussions on urban renewal. Whereas debateswere once related mainly to compensation and relocation, now a great variety of civil societyactors campaign on issues ranging from air ventilation to social network preservation. ManyHong Kongers still perceive these activists as peculiar sentimentalists who stand in the wayof economic development, but the fact is that significant numbers of people who are notdirectly displaced by redevelopment have come to regard themselves as stakeholders in theprocess.Pong Yuen-yee a town planner who worked at the LDC and the URA from 1989 to 2006,moved from planning into a community development role in the early 2000s in order todeal with this rise in the community’s awareness of their rights and of urban renewal’s impacton their living environment. Pong saw the Lee Tung Street (Wedding Card Street) projectas a catalyst and turning point for urban renewal activism. 14 For the first time, the displacedresidents were concerned not just about their own well-being, but about whether the streetwould retain any heritage elements after redevelopment. 15These developments do not mean that Hong Kong people no longer highly value economicgrowth, nor does it even mean that the public is unanimous on any of these issues. It doesmean that the public’s aspirations have grown more complex and sophisticated. There isa growing recognition that economic prosperity and good quality urban design are notmutually exclusive pursuits, but go hand-in-hand.9