Producing ‘luxury’ housing: Developers’ strategies and housing advertisements in Hong Kong (1961–2011)

Building on insights from critical luxury studies, this paper examines how developers produce ‘luxury’ in Hong Kong’s high-priced housing by using textual analysis on a sample of newspaper advertisements for private housing from 1961 to 2011. Findings show how advertisers and developers actively injected new elements of luxury to maximise profits. We argue that Hong Kong’s property oligarchy has successfully created luxury housing in previously unremarkable locations by producing various exclusivist aspirations, thus promoting excess and reinforcing housing and socio-spatial inequalities. Our discussion deepens understanding of Hong Kong’s housing hierarchy by looking beyond location-based exclusivity and contributes to critical luxury studies by underscoring the strategies of property conglomerates in the production of luxury housing.

本文以奢侈品批判研究為基礎，嘗試對 1961 年至 2011 年間刊登在報紙上的私人住宅廣告作抽樣調查和文本分析，檢視發展商如何在香港的高價住房市場製造出“奢侈品” —豪宅。 研究結果清楚顯示廣告商和發展商積極地注入新的奢侈元素以賺取更大的利潤。我們認為，香港的房地產不單寡頭壟斷，又通過編造各種私家獨享願景，成功地在原本的普通地段打造出豪宅社區，促成了消費主義中的過剩文化，並強化了住房和社會空間的不平等現象。我們的討論跳出房地產思維裡地段決定論的局限，深化了對香港住房等級體系的理解；又通過分析房地產集團在豪宅生產方面的各種營銷策略，為奢侈品批判研究添磚加瓦。 Copyright © 2020 Urban Studies Journal Limited.