Spatial governance and the rise of post-politics in Hong Kong

This paper argues that the rise of neoliberal spatial strategy in Hong Kong coincides with the rise of post-politics in its polity. The first part of this paper develops a theoretical framework that accounts for the rise of the post-political condition in spatial planning. The choreography of public participation, the usage of fuzzy concepts in planning discourse, and the disarticulation of spatial resistance and contradiction have created a ‘properly political’ environment that allows the continuity of the state-led planning strategy across different parts of the world. The second part of this paper applies the theoretical framework to examine the evolution of neoliberal spatial planning in Hong Kong in the post-1997 context. It argues that the transformation of spatial planning in Hong Kong reflects the need to anchor those divergent antagonistic elements within its institutional framework and the difficulties in assimilating them. It examines these arguments with reference to four spatial governances in Hong Kong, namely the landfill governance, the regeneration governance, the transport governance, and the governance for new towns development. Copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis.