香港公共空間的演變Transformation of the mode of public space in Hong Kong

中文撮要:
由於香港的經濟體制及社會架構的改變，香港公共空間在這幾個十年亦隨著不斷演變。街道空間本是傳統的公共空間模式，隨著香港轉變為國際後工業社會，西方文化的入侵以及全球化帶來了根底上的變化，如蘭桂坊式的街道文化，商場文化等。

The dorminant mode and form of public space in Hong Kong have been constantly transforming during these decades. The ground reason is because of the social and economical advancement, as well as the changing need of citizens. While the street area was used to be the major public space for local habitants in Hong Kong, unrecognizable public spaces such as shopping malls and recreational spaces in residential clusters become dominant in 21st century of Hong Kong.

The evolution of the economy during these decades has been the main reason of the change of the mode and form of the public space. After second world war, Hong Kong became manufacturing port, which requires only intensive labours with specific manufacturing skills such as machine controlling, sewing and making plastic flowers,etc. At that period, the localized society and community with local culture were still the main composition that structured the Hong Kong population. With this reason, street level market were still the major type of public spaces, which enhances the local interactions between the hawkers and the consumers. Also, while the classes were not strictly defined, citizens with different social background were easily emerged together within the street level public spaces. In this sense, this type of public space is self-generating, participated by local community and changed according to the local residences.

街道空間 Street style public space  (Photo attribution by dhelling01)

Yet, when Hong Kong became post-industrial service economy, emergent of international culture brings up transformation of traditional public spaces. One of the examples is Lan Kwai Fong, which has experienced the transformation of the nature of the district which resulted from the invasion of western styles bar and cafes by westerners. In this case, the street traditions are totally evolutionized with changing cultural types.

Another type of new public space could be found in the globalized mega shopping malls, which is located everywhere in Hong Kong. This type of public space creates the issue that it is no longer to be solely owned by the local residences and change according to the local needs, but on the other hand controlled by the single authority. The freedom of using these public space is limited by the authority, including the more restricted rules, restricted time of using. On the other hand, the authorities who own these "public space" could make revenue by renting it to other parties.

Finally, pedestrian bridge system in Central is one of the phenomenen of the change of society in post-modern city in Hong Kong. These bridges connect different office towers and malls with segregation of the road traffic, allowing fast paces of pedestrian movement. Yet, these kind of public spaces discourage human interactions and reduce functionality.

中環行人天橋系統 Central pedestrian bridge system

With different characteristic of public spaces during these few decades, we can see that the advancement of the economy could change the type and mode of public spaces in Hong Kong.