IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirb/v39y2012i3p416-438.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Racial Segregation by Legislative Zoning and Company Law: An Empirical Hong Kong Study

Author

Listed:
  • Lawrence W C Lai
  • Valerius W C Kwong

Abstract

In this paper we employ readily available categories of public data, rarely used in the literature on racial segregation, to scrutinise three research questions about the proposition of Lai and Yu (2001 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 28 295–314) that statutory zoning, which discriminates against a certain class of citizens, can be a form of price control. The key findings are that there was a large Chinese population on the Peak in Hong Kong even when the law did not allow Chinese people to own property there, that the process of acquiring European properties for residential purposes after the removal of the law was slow, and the Peak remained predominantly European until the 1980s. In other words, the factual evidence supports the argument that racially discriminatory zoning in the Peak District had not been predicated on racial animosity or aversion. The residential history of the Peak and another exclusively European housing enclave in Shek O established prewar under company law points towards the reality that the attempt to prevent the Chinese from buying properties in certain areas of Hong Kong was driven by idiosyncratic demands for a particular housing style. These two case studies demonstrated that contractual planning is much more capable of preserving the character of a neighbourhood than obligatory planning by edict. Some economic reasons behind the resilience of planning by mutual agreement and their implications for sustainable development are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Lawrence W C Lai & Valerius W C Kwong, 2012. "Racial Segregation by Legislative Zoning and Company Law: An Empirical Hong Kong Study," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 39(3), pages 416-438, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:39:y:2012:i:3:p:416-438
    DOI: 10.1068/b37032
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/b37032
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/b37032?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben Yu & Daigee Shaw & Tsu-Tan Fu & Lawrence Lai, 2000. "Property rights and contractual approach to sustainable development," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 3(3), pages 291-309, September.
    2. Chris Webster & Lawrence W.-C. Lai, 2003. "Property Rights, Planning and Markets," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2625.
    3. Robert H. Nelson, 2000. "Collective private ownership of American housing:a social revolution in local governance," ICER Working Papers 09-2000, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    4. Frank T. Lorne, 2009. "Macro-entrepreneurship and sustainable development: the need for innovative solutions for promoting win-win interactions," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 10(2), pages 69-85, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lai, Lawrence W.C. & Davies, Stephen N.G. & Chan, Edwin H.W. & Chua, Mark Hansley & Lin, C.L., 2020. "The production and consumption of land use planning: A neo-institutional economic perspective & three Taiwan case studies of planning layering," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    2. Lawrence W C Lai & Connie W Y Hung, 2008. "The Inner Logic of the Coase Theorem and a Coasian Planning Research Agenda," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 35(2), pages 207-226, April.
    3. Lawrence Lai, 2011. "Commentary: Journey through Six Property Rights Stories along the Pacific Rim," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(3), pages 589-594, February.
    4. Lawrence W.C. Lai, 2020. "Sustainable development of heritage conservation and tourism: A Hong Kong case study on colonial heritage," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 1181-1188, September.
    5. Frank Lorne, 2009. "Macro-entrepreneurship and sustainable development: the need for innovative solutions for promoting win-win interactions," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 10(2), pages 69-85, June.
    6. Claude Lacour & Sylvette Puissant, 2007. "Re-Urbanity: Urbanising the Rural and Ruralising the Urban," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(3), pages 728-747, March.
    7. Whitehead, Christine M E & Sagor, Emma & Edge, Ann & Walker, Bruce, 2015. "Understanding the local impact of new residential development: a pilot study," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 63390, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Jieming Zhu, 2005. "A Transitional Institution for the Emerging Land Market in Urban China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(8), pages 1369-1390, July.
    9. Shuhai Zhang & Gert De Roo & Bin Lu, 2011. "China: What About the Urban Revolution? Rapid Transformations in Chinese Planning and Its Links with a Slowly Emerging European Planning Theory," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(12), pages 1997-2011, June.
    10. Annette M. Kim, 2011. "Introduction: Real Rights to the City—Cases of Property Rights Changes towards Equity in Eastern Asia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(3), pages 459-469, February.
    11. André Sorensen & Anna-Katharina Brenner, 2021. "Cities, Urban Property Systems, and Sustainability Transitions: Contested Processes of Institutional Change and the Regulation of Urban Property Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-19, July.
    12. Ernest R. Alexander, 2015. "70 Years? Planning Theory: A Post-postmodernist Perspective," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(1), pages 5-18.
    13. Nir Mualam & Debora Sotto, 2020. "From Progressive Property to Progressive Cities: Can Socially Sustainable Interpretations of Property Contribute toward Just and Inclusive City-Planning? Global Lessons," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-29, June.
    14. Francesco Minora, 2013. "Collective institutions towards habitability: roles, strategies and forms of governance," Euricse Working Papers 1352, Euricse (European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises).
    15. Andersson, David Emanuel & Shyr, Oliver F. & Fu, Johnson, 2010. "Does high-speed rail accessibility influence residential property prices? Hedonic estimates from southern Taiwan," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 166-174.
    16. Hojman, David E. & Hiscock, Julia, 2010. "Interpreting suboptimal business outcomes in light of the Coase Theorem: Lessons from Sidmouth International Festival," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 240-249.
    17. Paul A. Barter, 2015. "A parking policy typology for clearer thinking on parking reform," International Journal of Urban Sciences, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 136-156, July.
    18. Mildred E. Warner, 2012. "Does Local Government Size Matter? Privatization and Hybrid Systems of Local Service Delivery," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1212, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    19. Lawrence Wai-Chung Lai, 2014. "Planning by contract: two dialogues," Chapters, in: David Emanuel Andersson & Stefano Moroni (ed.), Cities and Private Planning, chapter 7, pages 135-152, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Alison Brown & Colman Msoka & Ibrahima Dankoco, 2015. "A refugee in my own country: Evictions or property rights in the urban informal economy?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(12), pages 2234-2249, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:39:y:2012:i:3:p:416-438. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.