Product details

For more than 150 years, Hong Kong periodically has reclaimed - or filled in - land from Victoria Harbor in order to expand the limited area available for development. During the colonial era, such decisions were the province of the British-appointed executive branch. But in the mid-1990s, as Britain prepared to pass authority over Hong Kong to China, challenges arose both to the wisdom of filling in yet more of the harbor and to the scope of so-called ''executive-led'' decision making. This case describes the emergence and evolving role of citizens'' groups in the public planning process regarding additional harbor reclamation in Hong Kong. It focuses specifically on the tactics, between 1997 and 2005, of the Society for the Protection of the Harbour, an advocacy group which seeks to preserve Victoria Harbor - a goal with significant implications for the Hong Kong government''s plan to use reclaimed land for the construction of a highway designed to ease congestion in Hong Kong''s ultra-crowded city center. The case provides a vehicle for discussion of the relative legitimacy of civic groups and government agencies in the context of a polity in which formal democracy is limited but in which a democratic public culture of free press and free expression is strong. Also, it allows for discussion of operational strategies that might be deployed both by civic groups and government officials, in the context of a disputed policy. Those interested in Hong Kong itself and its political development at the time of the so-called ''changeover'' from British to mainland Chinese rule will be interested in reading this case in conjunction with the case ''Executive-led Government and Hong Kong''s Legislative Council: Debating Harbor Protection'' (KSG1431.0).