Residential Alienation and Generational Activism in Hong Kong

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper extends the concept of residential alienation to political activism in Hong Kong in the decade following the Global Financial Crisis. Young adults in Hong Kong have endured growing housing vulnerability with declining real wages, limited social benefits, and spiralling housing prices. Although university-educated, many have been excluded from the wealth accumulation of homeownership and entry to a middle-class asset society. Some have joined the waiting list for public housing. Using varied sources, the paper examines the objective and subjective status of young adults in Hong Kong as a disadvantaged housing class and how their status has corresponded with critical political attitudes. Without disputing the motivational goals of the democracy movement, the paper argues that residential alienation played a part in political mobilization. Economic justice, notably housing inclusion, required a political project to challenge the residential growth machine sanctioned by Beijing.