Contagious City: The Bubonic Plague and the First Urban Renewal Scheme in Hong Kong

Abstract

As we contemplate how the story of the pandemic of 2020 will be retold in the future, it is timely to revisit the aftermath of another epidemic that occurred over a century ago in Hong Kong: The bubonic plague outbreak of 1894 that killed over two thousand people and gave rise to the colony’s first major urban renewal project in Taipingshan. Although the development has been widely seen as the government’s decisive first step toward long-term planning aimed at improving the health of the population, it is far from a triumphal story of benevolence. By retracing some of the lesser known dynamics of the case, this essay elucidates some of the inherent logics of urban development that continued to shape the forms and norms of the city over the following century.