Socialising on a Skywalk: How Hong Kong's Elevated Walkways Become Public Open Spaces
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
In high-density Asian cities, the increasing scarcity of public open spaces gives rise to the need for stationary activities to tap into spaces originally conceived exclusively to channel pedestrian movements, such as grade separation pedestrian systems. However, the types and patterns of stationary activities on elevated walkways remain mostly unexplored. This study focuses on Hong Kong, wherein the scarcity of public open space characterises an extreme condition and where the burden of this scarcity falls most heavily on disadvantaged social groups, such as migrant workers. The findings highlight the prevalence of socially oriented activities and the importance of food as a gathering factor.
Article Details
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Asian Journal of Environment-Behaviour Studies
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
References
Agyeman, J., & Zavestoski, S. (2015). Incomplete streets: processes, practices, and possibilities. Oxon: Routledge.
Bechtel, R., & Zeisel, J. (1987). Observation: the world under a glass. In R. Bechtel, R. Marans, & W. Michelson (Eds.), Methods in Environmental and Behavioral Research. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Cheshmehzangi, A., & Heath, T. (2017). Effects of Temporary Markets on Spatial Inter-relations: A behavioural analysis of a public realm in the UK. Journal of ASIAN Behavioural Studies, 2(3), 41.
Corbett, M. J., Xie, F., & Levinson, D. (2009). Evolution of the Second-Story City: The Minneapolis Skyway System. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 36(4), 711–724.
Cui, J., Allan, A., & Lin, D. (2013). The development of grade separation pedestrian system: A review. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology, 38, 151–160.
Cui, J., Allan, A., Taylor, M. A. P., & Lin, D. (2013). Developing Shanghai Underground Pedestrian System Under Urbanization: Mobility, Functionality and Equity. Journal of Architecture and Urbanism, 36(4), 283–297.
Elsheshtawy, Y. (2013). Where the sidewalk ends: Informal street corner encounters in Dubai. Cities, 31, 382–393. DOI:
Gehl, J. (1987). Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Ghavampour, E., Del Aguila, M., & Vale, B. (2017). GIS mapping and analysis of behaviour in small urban public spaces. Area, 49(3), 349–358.
Goličnik Marušic, B. (2016). Discrepancy between likely and actual occupancies of urban outdoor places. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 18, 151–162.
Hanan, H. (2017). Every Day Practices and Experiential Urban Space. Asian Journal of Environment-Behaviour Studies, 2(5), 27. DOI:
Harris, A. (2018). Engineering Formality: Flyover and Skywalk Construction in Mumbai. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(2), 295–314.
Hatuka, T., & Toch, E. (2016). The emergence of portable private-personal territory: Smartphones, social conduct and public spaces. Urban Studies, 53(10), 2192–2208.
HKSAR Census and Statistics Department. (2016). 2016 Population By-census.
Lam, P., & Kung, F. (2004). Innovative and sustainable construction for a footbridge system in congested mongkok, hong kong. HKIE Transactions Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, 11(1), 15–20.
Lam, W. F. (2005). Coordinating the government bureaucracy in Hong Kong: An institutional analysis. Governance, 18(4), 633–654. DOI:
Law, L. (2001). Home cooking: Filipino women and geographies of the senses in Hong Kong. Ecumene, 8(Figure 1), 264–283.
Law, L. (2002). Defying Disappearance: Cosmopolitan Public Spaces in Hong Kong. Urban Studies, 39(9), 1625–1645.
Maitland, B. (1992). Hidden cities: The irresistible rise of the North American interior city. Cities, 9(3), 162–169. DOI:
Mehta, V. (2009). Look closely and you will see, listen carefully and you will hear: Urban design and social interaction on streets. Journal of Urban Design, 14(1), 29–64.
Muniandy, P. (2015). Informality and the politics of temporariness: Ethnic migrant economies in Little Bangladesh and Little Burma in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. International Sociology, 30(6), 561–578.
Nikolaeva, A., Adey, P., Cresswell, T., Lee, J. Y., Nóvoa, A., & Temenos, C. (2019). Commoning mobility: Towards a new politics of mobility transitions. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 44(2), 346–360.
Ostertag, E. (2016). Transitory community hubs: How temporary migration transforms a neighbourhood in Singapore. City, 20(1), 116–129.
Rasidi, M. H., Jamirsah, N., & Said, I. (2012). Urban Green Space Design Affects Urban Residents’ Social Interaction. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robertson, K. A. (1993). Pedestrianization strategies for downtown planners skywalks versus pedestrian malls. Journal of the American Planning Association, 59(3), 361–370.
Rossini, F. (2019). Temporary urban intervention in the vertical city: a place-making project to re-activate the public spaces in Hong Kong. Journal of Urban Design, 24(2), 305–323.
Sun, Z., Bell, S., Scott, I., & Qian, J. (2019). Everyday use of urban street spaces: the spatio-temporal relations between pedestrians and street vendors: a case study in Yuncheng, China. Landscape Research, 00(00), 1–18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2019.1646231
Talamini, G., & Pires Ferreira, D. (2019). An informal transportation as a feeder of the rapid transit system. Spatial analysis of the e-bike taxi service in Shenzhen, China. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 1, 100002.
Tammikakul, P., & Raksawin, K. (2019). The Pattern of Activity Analysis by GIS in Chiang Mai Public Plaza, Thailand. Asian Journal of Environment-Behaviour Studies, 4(13), 30.
Tan, Z., & Xue, C. Q. L. (2014). Walking as a Planned Activity: Elevated Pedestrian Network and Urban Design Regulation in Hong Kong. Journal of Urban Design, 19(5), 722–744.
Tang, B. (2017). Is the distribution of public open space in Hong Kong equitable, why not? Landscape and Urban Planning, 161, 80–89.
Terranova, C. N. (2009). Ultramodern Underground Dallas: Vincent Ponte’s Pedestrian-Way as Systematic Solution to the Declining Downtown. Urban History Review, 37(2), 18.
Tillu, J. S. (2011). Spatial empowerment: the appropriation of public spaces by Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong. Master Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved from https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/67244
UN-Habitat. (2013). Streets as public spaces and drivers of urban prosperity. Nairobi: UN-Habitat.
Villani, C. (2018). CBD: A new porosity. In C. Yuan (Ed.), Walkable Cities in High Density China: Livable, Healthy and Sustainable (pp. 83–109). Shanghai: Tongji University Press.
Villani, C., Zordan, M., Talamini, G., & Cheng, Y. H. (2019). Temporarily Pedestrianized Street in Hong Kong: Governmental Strategy of Implementation and Tactics of Appropriation by Foreign Domestic Workers. In Proceedings of the AESOP 2019 Congress Book of Papers (p. 2559). Venice: The AESOP 2019 Congress.
Von Schönfeld, K. C., & Bertolini, L. (2017). Urban streets: Epitomes of planning challenges and opportunities at the interface of public space and mobility. Cities, 68(June 2016), 48–55.
Wan, S. W. S. (2010). The Role of the Skywalk System in the Development of Hong Kong’s Central Business District. Ssrn. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1699686
Wang, W., Siu, K. W. M., & Wong, K. C. K. (2016). The pedestrian bridge as everyday place in high-density cities: An urban reference for necessity and sufficiency of placemaking. Urban Design International, 21(3), 236–253.
Whyte, W. H. (1980). The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (12th print). New York: Project for Public Spaces. Retrieved from https://www.worldcat.org/title/social-life-of-small-urban-spaces/oclc/907415693&referer=brief_results
Xue, C. Q. L., Manuel, K. K., & Chung, R. H. Y. (2001). Public space in the old derelict city area - a case study of Mong Kok, Hong Kong. Urban Design International, 6(1), 15–31.
Yin, R. K. (1984). Applied social research methods series Case study research: Design and methods. London: SAGE Publications.
Zacharias, J., & He, J. (2018). Hong Kong’s urban planning experiment in enhancing pedestrian movement from underground space to the surface. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology, 82(July), 1–8.
Zordan, M., Talamini, G., & Villani, C. (2019). The Association between Ground Floor Features and Public Open Space Face-To-Face Interactions: Evidence from Nantou Village, Shenzhen. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(24), 4934.