Figure 1. The Star Ferry

(RailTravel Station, 2019)

1. Introduction

Nowadays, capitalism rules the world in the sense of dominating economic and cultural systems. The globalization of capitalism further empowers capitalism to influence city governance practices and create traces over the world. To raise competitiveness, many cities begin to adopt marketing strategies to promote themselves. To attract capital, the city administration adopts marketing strategies to promote the city itself. In this process, the city started to conduct urban planning policies based on capitalist logic, which means that they began to use the entrepreneur's perception to manage the city. Capitalism, therefore, has deeply penetrated the city's urban planning. The Hong Kong government has also utilized image-building strategies to market the city. Since 2001, the government has launched the Brand Hong Kong program for promoting Hong Kong as a global city with security, good connectivity, and rich diversity. The city administration actively planned and implemented various development projects to establish a city image, just like the government. However, as these development projects may dismantle or reconstruct existing buildings, citizens may reject them and struggle for their place. Thus, this project would study how urban planning commercializes space and how citizens resist these capitalism-based policies for protecting their traces by analyzing the case of Central Reclamation Phase III and the Star Ferry Pier movement.

2. Capitalism, Globalization and City Marketing 

From the cultural geography perspective, space is a social product that is formed by social and political factors. Lefebvre (1991) states that space is a product of capitalist society and a site of class struggle (as cited in Vilalta, 2008). To study why the urban space of Hong Kong becomes commercialized under the government's urban planning, it is vital to discuss how capitalism and globalization change government attitudes towards capital and city planning.

The globalization of capitalism has increased capital mobility, changed the rules of the game, and empowered corporations to influence government governance. To attract capital and compete with one another, cities began to adopt place marketing strategies to promote themselves. They started to use imagery to aestheticize places to increase their competitiveness (Hughes, 1999). For example, they may project themselves as an ideal business place, living place, and tourist destination to attract investment, talents, and tourism (Hughes, 1999). Cities then were aesthetically revamped to match with these invisible city image discourses (i.e. an ideal business place) and make the city image become visible in order to attract capital investors. One strategy is to build social and cultural infrastructures such as festival theatre and conference center (Hughes, 1999). These image-building activities show that governments have managed urban space based on capitalist principles like market values and profit-logic, and marketed cities as consumption sites to capital investors. They use culture to enhance the city's market value, which injects capitalist value into the culture and the city itself and leads to the commodification of culture and city. Thus, under image-building strategies, city, culture, and urban places have become a product of consumption.

However, these capitalism-based policies not only can attract capital but also can dislocate people from local cultures. To establish a city image, governments may dismantle local traces and replace them with homogenized traces, which may ultimately destroy the city's cultural diversity and make people feel ‘out of place’.

3. Empirical Analysis: Central Reclamation Phase III and the Central Star Ferry Pier 

This section would discuss how Hong Kong government establishes city image and how citizens respond to these capitalism-based urban planning strategies by studying the case of Central Reclamation Phase III and the Star Ferry Pier movement. 

From historical perspective, Central was a venue for Westerners and wealthy people in the 1890s. The ferry pier was used by the British government in 1898 and became Star Ferry Pier several years later (Cheng, 2010). Our study site, the Edinburgh Place Ferry which is the third generation of the pier, became a part of the public space planning project in the 1950s (Hong Kong Institute of Architects,2006). 

The Central Reclamation has 3 phases in total. The purpose of phase III is to break new ground for building crucial transportation infrastructures. In order to reinforce the captivation of Victoria Harbour, phase III is also planned to construct a world-class waterfront promenade to provide extra land for greening and rest (Development Bureau, 2014). After the reclamation, there are such new famous landmarks as the Hong Kong Maritime Museum and the Hong Kong Observation Wheel. Through building these westernized traces, the government tries to enhance the city image as a top business and tourist destination. The dismantling of the Pier involved in the project was a controversial topic, as the pier has significant historical value and the traces involved are meaningful for local citizens. 

Historically, the Pier marks the period when Hong Kong was under British colonial rule. It was built in 1957 by the colonial government. Its design is of British architecture style. The clock tower at the pier was designed by the same manufacturer as Big Ben in London (Auyeung, 2007). Many citizens consider it a representation of the colonial history of HK. Nevertheless, some argue that buildings with colonial style should not be preserved, since colonization history is not worth remembering. However, the value that the Pier possesses is not only the nostalgia for the colonial government but also the people’s lives and the social context during the colonial period (Cheung, 2016). It is a place where citizens root themselves and give themselves a definition. The affective and experiential traces have associated citizens with city, which then reinforced citizens' sense of belonging and sense of identity to local community.

Furthermore, numerous important large-scale social movements took place in the Pier from the 1950-70s. For instance, the 1966 riots and the Chinese movement in 1960-70s. The Pier served as a venue of protesting, showing that the Pier is not only a place of transportation but also a place for people to unify and fight for their rights. Although these movements have passed, the presence of the Pier can still recall the memories of people and remind people to bravely express their opinions to the government (Cheung, 2016). The Pier is of great significance to the community. Since it is public in nature, it can form any kind of relationship with anyone. It is a collective memory of citizens, constructing their sense of belonging to the city (Cheng, 2016).

Before the Star Ferry Pier Movement, Hong Kong citizens did not pay much attention to urban renewal development. It is the first social movement against the government's urban planning in recent years. In 2006, some citizens knew that the government plans to dismantle the Star Ferry Pier; thus, they tried to communicate with the government and asked for a better plan (Tsao, 2007). However, the government replied that the pier was not a cultural relic, and accused the public that there should be a more substantial reason for keeping a place since land resources are precious (Ho, 2006). It shows that they are in a dominating position in the urban planning process, and they can decide whether those historic buildings can be kept or not based on the definition of "cultural relics". In this case, the government denied the uniqueness and the cultural value of the pier, but only considered economic benefits.

In November 2006, Star Ferry pier ceased service, and the staff started the demolition work. Thus, people turned to participate in the demonstration in person; they went to the dockside and impeded staff from the construction. The incident aroused widespread concern later, but the minister who was in charge of the reclamation plan still refused to answer the phone called by the legislators (Sing Tao Daily, 2006). Concurrently, the government approved the demolition plan; the movement was deemed as a failure in the end (Tsao, 2007).

However, the movement is not a failure; people started to realize the capitalist ideology in urban planning. Unquestionably, they may not be able to resist the reclamation plan this time, but this movement is a milestone. It signifies that Hong-Kongers no longer focus on economic value only, but emphasize local culture and collective memory. Thus, while the government still plans our city by economic benefits only, residents begin to think about the relationship between space, history, architecture, and themselves, and eventually promoted the "Queen's Pier incident" and many other movements later.

4. Conclusion  

Overall, this project points out that Hong Kong’s urban space has deteriorated in the cultural term as government policies are commercialized. The history of the Star Ferry Pier shows both advantages and disadvantages of the government’s urban planning. There is a proliferation of earnings under commercialization and globalization. However, gone are the days when Hong Kong has a notable cultural geographical symbol. All the events that happened in the landmark would disappear as time goes by. Undoubtedly, there is a dilemma in balancing historical value and economic value perfectly. Nevertheless, stakeholders need to review the effects of urban planning and think about how a city should be. The development of the city needs to be based on the thought of residents in the territory finally.

References

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