Subsidizing sunset

In this chapter, I examine the transformation of Hong Kong’s Kennedy Town neighborhood and the mass transit infrastructure project at its core. Through this case, I argue that a radical transformation of planning in Hong Kong has been accomplished through the protracted work of contesting and reestablishing foundational conceptions and practices of value over roughly the last quarter-century. Put differently, this chapter argues that notions and practices of value have shifted in highly consequential ways in a context defined by tumultuous (geo)political-economic transitions, and that these renegotiations of the means and ends of valuation are both accomplished through and constitutive of contemporary planning. The redevelopment of Kennedy Town required the renegotiation not only of the agents and agencies of planning and the tools at their disposal, but also of the mandates and rationales by which Hong Kong’s planning is now proffered, pursued, and made legitimate.