Social equity in housing in the Hong Kong special administrative region: A social sustainability perspective

Abstract

The housing arena in Hong Kong has undergone dramatic transformation due to the change in government in 1997 and the subsequent economic recession engendered by the Asian financial crisis. This paper applies the sustainable development perspective to investigate whether policy changes and government responses to the collapse in the property market have made the distribution and consumption of Hong Kong more equitable. It argues that the government's emphasis on home ownership has intensified horizontal and vertical inequity but that the economic recession has the unintended effect of reducing vertical inequity between the low- and the lower-middle-income groups. Simultaneously, the recession has reduced the housing choices and mobility of the middle-income groups, rendering them the real losers of the housing policies and economic changes after 1997. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley and Sons. Ltd and ERP Environment.