“The definitive history of how resettlement policies evolved as the squatter population swelled and as London and Beijing moved closer to signing the 1984 Sino-British Declaration. A masterful combination of theorizing and documentary sleuthing, a landmark in contemporary debates over the optimal responses to the formalization of informal property.”

—Deborah Davis, Yale University

“Smart and Fung offer a fresh and thought-provoking analysis of the changing state-society relations in the postwar decades by unravelling the complexities of Hong Kong’s urban landscape through their critical analysis of the question of informality and the issue of squatting.”

—Lui Tai-Lok, Education University of Hong Kong

“Employing ethnography and combing through archives, Smart and Fung uncover how the British formalized squatter housing. Highlighting questions of sociopolitical and historical change by analyzing bureaucratic and geopolitical forces—a fascinating project delving into the nature of colonial rule, immigrant resilience, and political economic structures. A major contribution to evidence-based settler colonial studies.”

—Setha Low, City University of New York

List of Illustrations

List of Tables 

Preface 

Acknowledgments 

Abbreviations 

Map of Hong Kong in 1984 

1. Introduction 

2. Informality 

3. Evaluating the Geopolitical Explanation 

4. The Situation in the Early 1960s

5. Riots and Reforms 

6. The Mangle of Policy Practice 

7. Supply, Demand, and Failures 

8. Hong Kong Identity and Squatter Exclusion 

9. Squatter Area Improvement 

10. The Squatter Occupancy Survey 

11. Managing Squatting in Other Asian Cities 

12. Conclusions 

Notes 

Bibliography 

Index