New research on the history of public housing and squatting in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong Public and Squatter Housing, Alan Smart and Fung Chi Keung Charles trace the development of squatting in Hong Kong from 1963 to 1985. The authors reconstruct government policy on squatting through both ethnographic and archival research. This book sheds new light on the consequences of various attempts to control encroachment on scarce urban space. The authors argue that intersecting policy agendas resulted in decisions that were often not desired, but which emerged as practical solutions from prior failures. They address the challenges of explaining confidential policy decisions and offer new approaches applicable in other contexts. Overall, this book makes an important contribution to the understanding of how public housing and squatting interacted in influential ways that have been poorly understood and offer new perspectives on the challenges of urban governance and housing problems.
