Towards strategic planning and regional sustainability: Hong Kong in the Pearl River Delta Region

This paper examines the wider spatial and governmental context for promoting sustainable development policies in Hong Kong. It examines the spatial frameworks and the territory-specific approaches adopted in Hong Kong since the 1970s. Despite the claim of a non-interventionist approach, government intervention for the purposes of promoting economic growth was evident in the development model of Hong Kong under the British rule. Additionally, the notion of strategic planning at the regional level was absent from the spatial framework. This was so even with the growing economic interaction between Hong Kong and the other cities in the Pearl River Delta Region (PRDR) in the 1980s and remained so in the early years of the SAR government. With economic integration between Hong Kong and the PRDR, strategic planning has to take on a different form. The diversity of the socio-economic context and the complexity of political processes in the PRDR offer enormous opportunities to all stakeholders. Hong Kong should be more proactive in bringing the region together with a view to attaining regional sustainability.