How Can Hong Kong be a Truly World City Towards a Polycentric Metropolis Spatial Planning,

Abstract

The official rhetoric has long been depicting Hong Kong as an international financial centre and the “Asia’s World City” like London and New York. As Times Magazine coined a concept of “Ny-lon-kong” to show Hong Kong acts like two truly world cities – London and New York on the geo-economic landscape. However, scant attention has been paid on whether Hong Kong is a truly world city which can command the global economy like London and New York. This paper discusses these issues in the context of sociological and geographical research that illustrate major characteristics of a world city and propose the way forward for Hong Kong to become a truly world city through spatial development into a polycentric metropolis. It has three parts. First, it introduces seven interrelated hypothesis developed by John Friedmann to highlight the features of a world city. Second, particular attention will be paid on assessing whether Hong Kong is a global command and control city through our latest quantitative analysis of the command and control functions of cities worldwide. Third, the development of polycentric metropolitan region in Southern China offer synergetic chances for cities across the borders to grab global capital and capitalize on domestic demand of an emerging China economy. It argues that Hong Kong is currently a regional command city in the global economy that has yet to be on equal footings to London and New York. Successful spatial development from a polycentric metropolitan region in the southern China may be a way forward for Hong Kong and cities in the Pearl River Delta to radiate an international character and to compete at a global scale through bundling their resources and potentials in a cross-border cooperation manner.