| In recent decades, the Hong Kong government has continuously set up strategies and plans, and sought authority through legislation to control city space. When undertaking urban development, as Lefebvre (1996) has commented on current urban development, the government follows the planning principles of administrators who accompany the deliberate forms of operational rationalism, and tend to neglect the “human factor.” They see rational planning—generally considered as a technique of communication and circulation—as an active force and the “only” and “proper” means of directing the community towards the ideal of social harmony. The government also follows the planning principles of developers who openly maximise profit. What is new and recent is that they are no longer selling housing or buildings, but planning.; In the studies of “sociology of everyday life,” some French sociologists, such as Michel de Certeau, Henri Lefebvre, and Michel Maffesoli, point out that the everyday life in modern society is organised according to a concerted programme, and the urban setting is cybernetised. People's everyday life is embodied in the experience of a highly organised society, which is strictly programmed according to the closed circuit of production-consumption-production (Lefebvre, 1984). These sociologists have conducted detailed studies on the everyday life of common people, and offer us a new perspective from which to see everyday life and the response of Hong Kong people to their programmed living environment.; Through the theoretical review of how urban theorists and sociologists see city space and its order from different perspectives, and the empirical research on a market street and some supplementary case-study sites, this study attempts to ascertain that the habitants of a city—city users—are “tactical practitioners” (de Certeau, 1984).; This study explores the role of city users and their interaction with the space in which they are living by asking the following questions: (a) What kind of city spaces, particularly open spaces, does the Hong Kong government provide for the Hong Kong people—the city users? (b) What kind of space do the city users truly need? (c) Do the city users in their daily practice observe and obey the objectives of these policies, strategies, and visions? (d) If not, do the city users practice their lives in accordance with the sociologists' ideas mentioned above? In other words, what is the Hong Kong people's reception of planned open spaces? (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
