Hong Kong: Cultural Heritage Conservation in a City of Change – Part 5: Living City Killers

Ho-Yin Lee and Lynne DiStefano ended off their talk with Four Principles to Conservation and Ten Living City Killers.

4 Principles to Conservation

1. Managing the pace of change (environmental sustainability)
2. allowing for continuity of social and physical fabric (social sustainability)
3. support urban community’s cultural heritage (cultural sustainability)
4. protect tangible and intangible heritage most valued to direct stakeholders (political sustainability)

Living City Killers

1. The Nostalgic City
   • Keep all the old buildings, but set them up as a museum or archaeological site.
2. The Amnesia City
   • Make everything new
   • City is under perpetual construction
3. Mega Shopping Paradise
   • The mega shopping mall is destroying neighbourhoods
4. Nostalgic Shopping Paradise
   • Destroy the original neighbourhood, then rebuild it through an imitation
5. Save the Shell
6. Save the Face
7. The Tourist Town
   • but no community
8. Tourist Theme Park
   • A Disneyland environment, but again with no community
9. Top-Down Approach
   • Father knows best method
   • Ignores the community
10. Money-trail
    • Buy out the community

After their Top 10 List, Lynne and Ho-Yin just had one more thing to say:

“See Hong Kong and Die.”

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