ABSTRACT

Busy and crowded streets, hundreds of people cramming together at crossroads, glass-windowed skyscrapers lined up along harbor coastlines-these are some of the images that best capture the city landscape of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the world’s most densely populated cities, with more than 7 million people living in a total area of only about 1,100 square kilometers. Rapid economic growth since 1970 has earned the city the honor of being one of Asia’s “four little dragons”. But if developmental success and urban prosperity are key highlights of recent history, a very different set of concerns are raised when one considers today’s Hong Kong, 15 years after its handover to China. This chapter focuses on the case of Ma Shi Po, a soon-to-be demolished village in northeastern Hong Kong, and the social activism of its residents and advocates in order to examine how global environmental and agricultural concerns have brought about new understandings of farming, urban planning and community in Hong Kong today.