Director/Producer: Tom COZENS
Music: Tom COZENS
Script: Tom COZENS and Professor Chris WEBSTER
Executive Producers: Professor Chris WEBSTER and Dr Eric SCHULDENFREI
Assistant Producer: Alex TAIT
Production Assistant: Winnie YEUNG
Editor: Nick BRIER
Academic Contributors: Dr Xiaoxuan LU, Dr Cole ROSKAM and Dr Guibo SUN
Actors: Xianwei LONG, Professor Shenjing HE and daughter, and Yi SUN
Borders emerge to order all complex systems. Our bodies have skin. Weather systems are defined at the edges by cloud and wind. Firms are governed by command and control within and by legal contracts without. Countries are protected from the leakage of tax-funded benefits by border controls. Neighbourhoods build gates for security and to prevent the over-use of facilities by those who have not paid for them. None of us these days would buy or rent a house that does not have a lockable front door. Boundaries, in themselves, are benign. But like the boundaries that order other complex systems, urban boundaries are often lines of turbulence. How can the boundaries that define cities be better managed to do their job with minimum turbulence?
Chris Webster, HKU, 2021
Featured Division and HKUrbanLabs:
Division of Landscape Architecture (landscapes of borderlands)
Rural Urban Framework (planning and settlement design for border regions)
Centre of Urban Studies and Urban Planning (gated communities, enclave development)
Ronald Coase Centre for Property Rights Research (property rights)
Readings:
Bolchover, J., & Hasdell, P. (2016). Border ecologies: Hong Kong’s Mainland frontier. Birkhäuser. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783035602845
He, S. (2013). Evolving enclave urbanism in China and its socio-spatial implications: The case of Guangzhou. Social & Cultural Geography, 14(3), 243-275. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2012.762112
Kelly, A. S., & Lu, X. (2018). Studio Laos: Strategic landscape planning for the Greater Mekong [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/312541576
Lai, L. W. C., & Chua, M. H. (2018). Zoning and private property rights in land: Static and dynamic boundary delineation. Habitat International, 75, 105-113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2018.03.003
Lu, X. (2019). Divergent memories of Tumen Shan-shui. European Journal of Korean Studies, 19(1), 229-274. https://doi.org/10.33526/EJKS.20191901.229
Monkkonen, P., Wong, K., & Begley, J. (2012). Economic restructuring, urban growth, and short-term trading: The spatial dynamics of the Hong Kong housing market, 1992–2008. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42(3), 396-406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2011.11.004
Park, S., Park, M. G., & Nam, K. M. (2019). Growth effects of fiscal decentralization with weak economic motivation: The case of South Korea. The Annals of Regional Science, 63(3), 399-436. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-019-00936-9
Roskam, C. (2019). Improvised city: Architecture and governance in Shanghai, 1843-1937. University of Washington Press. https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295744780/improvised-city/
Sun, G., Wallace, D., & Webster, C. (2020). Unravelling the impact of street network structure and gated community layout in development-oriented transit design. Land Use Policy, 90, 104328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104328
Webster, C. (2001). Gated cities of tomorrow. Town Planning Review, 72(2), 149-170. https://doi.org/10.3828/tpr.2001.72.2.149
Zhou, Y. (2017). Urban loopholes: Creative alliances of spatial production in Shanghai’s city center. Birkhäuser. https://www.arch.hku.hk/research_project/urban-loopholes/