Sham Shui Po Research Articles

The Mechanism of Street Markets Fostering Supportive Communities in Old Urban Districts: A Case Study of Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

In old urban districts with tenement buildings, street markets address the working class’s social and economic needs. They are pivotal in fostering supportive communities, in particular for low-income residents in sub-standard housing. However, their outdated overall environment impedes the delivery of adequate support to residents. Prior research on street markets has focused on those in the Americas and Europe, and has revealed the societal support values of these markets. However, studies on street markets in high-density cities like Hong Kong are lacking. This study introduces an evaluation framework to assess the impact of street markets on the development of supportive communities for Hong Kong’s sub-divided apartment residents. Employing the Pei Ho Street market in Sham Shui Po as a case study, an importance-performance analysis highlights critical but underperforming factors including public facilities, activity venues, commerce, and employment. Based on these findings, the study proposes four improvement strategies for the renewal of street markets in high-density communities, which could apply to other cities with similar high-density urban environments. It concludes that street markets in Hong Kong display unique spatial characteristics shaped by low-income lifestyles in a high-density urban environment, enriching daily social life and promoting sustainable community development.

Land, property, and territory: Mutual embeddedness as understood by thetongbianphilosophy

AbstractThe dominant tone of the literature on land's territorial politics misses conceptual complexities by neglecting historical constructions of land practices. An alternative understanding intertwines social and political elements emphasised in the non‐dualistic, beyond dialectics,tongbianphilosophy. This views everything as consisting of two mutually embedded, opposite poles—different yet without alienation; set in a ceaseless interaction as processes of becoming, continuity and change. The concept of focus–field relationship via a spatial story deciphers complexities between viewing land as territory (LaT) and land as property (LaP). Mobilising this formulation in sites of intensive real estate change (Hong Kong's Sham Shui Po and Mumbai's Malad) reveals subtleties of historical antecedents shaping contemporary forces. Here, complex institutional entanglements reveal both diachronic and synchronic interactions wherein the dynamics of control, shifts in power, growth or decline in time and space co‐join LaT and LaP. Such political complexities question views of land's transformation being contingent on archaic ideas of the Westphalian state and uni‐polar framings of capital moving from the North to the South. Thetongbianphilosophy allows the exploring of ideas of difference without alienation, embracing epistemic and ontological equivalence in theory and fieldwork, and between the North and South—themes seldom taken up in the geographical literature. Finally, the paper proposes a study of land dynamics using the concept of land occupancy via the spatial story approach.

Timing is everything: Territorial stigmatization, immobility policy, and the COVID-boom in Hong Kong’s Sham Shui Po

ABSTRACT This article examines a peculiar case of neighborhood change in Sham Shui Po, one of Hong Kong’s densest and poorest neighborhoods. Based on two mixed-methods research projects conducted in 2021 and early 2022, we use social media analysis and data gathered through a four-component “aesthetic survey” methodology to demonstrate the drastic transformation of a particular section of this neighborhood in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. A key question of this research is why such a transformation should be taking place in this exact moment, as previous attempts have been made to stimulate precisely the sorts of changes now observed over the course of the last decade or so, all to no avail. We argue that this unexpected “boom” is the result of a conjunction of pandemic mitigation policy implemented by the Hong Kong government (which we label “immobility policy”) and the widespread and enduring reputation of Sham Shui Po in the city’s cultural geography (which we explore through the concept of “territorial stigma”). This case therefore stands to contribute substantially to ongoing debates on the nature and pace of urban change, especially at crucial historico-geographical junctures.

Automated simulation for household road traffic noise exposure: Application and field evaluation in a high-density city

Road traffic noise is a major nuisance and a risk factor of poor health for urban dwellers. A household's exposure to road traffic noise, especially in a high-density city, can be easily modified by the surrounding built environment, i.e., roads, traffic, buildings, and the topography. This leads to high variation in noise exposure between neighboring households. Existing simulation-based studies were limited in accounting for the variation of noise exposure at the household level, which restricted their applications in public health research involving large numbers of participants. This paper describes a novel simulation-based workflow to assess household traffic noise exposure, which consists of 1) a source model to assess road traffic noise levels, 2) a propagation model to simulate noise propagation in complex three-dimensional urban areas, 3) an automation algorithm to process large quantity of simulation runs and data. The workflow has been evaluated using field studies conducted in Sham Shui Po District, Hong Kong, with reasonably good agreements between simulated and measured data. It was then used to assess road traffic noise exposure for a sample of 6158 households enrolled in the FAMILY Cohort, representing Hong Kong's population dwelling in the dense urban areas. Results showed that 83% of sampled households have been exposed to excessive road traffic noise above the World Health Organization (WHO) standard, or 30% above the local standard. The estimated burden of disease is over 45,000 disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) from both high annoyance and sleep disturbance for households in Hong Kong. The study has contributed to the methodologies and datasets in evaluating noise exposure in high-density cities, which can further support urban noise mitigation policies and planning and population-based health studies in the next steps.

Probable airborne transmission of Burkholderia pseudomallei causing an urban outbreak of melioidosis during typhoon season in Hong Kong, China

ABSTRACT Between January 2015 and October 2022, 38 patients with culture-confirmed melioidosis were identified in the Kowloon West (KW) Region, Hong Kong. Notably, 30 of them were clustered in the Sham Shui Po (SSP) district, which covers an estimated area of 2.5 km2. Between August and October 2022, 18 patients were identified in this district after heavy rainfall and typhoons. The sudden upsurge in cases prompted an environmental investigation, which involved collecting 20 air samples and 72 soil samples from residential areas near the patients. A viable isolate of Burkholderia pseudomallei was obtained from an air sample collected at a building site five days after a typhoon. B. pseudomallei DNA was also detected in 21 soil samples collected from the building site and adjacent gardening areas using full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing, suggesting that B. psuedomallei is widely distributed in the soil environment surrounding the district. Core genome-multilocus sequence typing showed that the air sample isolate was phylogenetically clustered with the outbreak isolates in KW Region. Multispectral satellite imagery revealed a continuous reduction in vegetation region in SSP district by 162,255 m2 from 2016 to 2022, supporting the hypothesis of inhalation of aerosols from the contaminated soil as the transmission route of melioidosis during extreme weather events. This is because the bacteria in unvegetated soil are more easily spread by winds. In consistent with inhalational melioidosis, 24 (63.2%) patients had pneumonia. Clinicians should be aware of melioidosis during typhoon season and initiate appropriate investigation and treatment for patients with compatible symptoms.

Sense of place, subjective well-being, and the influence of housing and neighbourhood: A comparative study of two marginalised districts in Hong Kong

This paper investigates the associations between the multiple dimensions of individuals’ sense of place and subjective well-being. The impact of objective and subjective housing and neighbourhood attributes on sense of place was also examined. Using a questionnaire and government spatial datasets, data were collected from residents of two marginalised communities in Hong Kong, Sham Shui Po and Tin Shui Wai. The results reveal positive relationships between various facets of sense of place and subjective well-being that vary in strength in different urban forms. Among the attributes of housing and neighbourhood analysed, housing satisfaction is found to be the strongest predictor of sense of place. The study further verifies the use of a synthesised three-dimensional scale to measure sense of place. It also has important implications for urban planning policies and practices for high-density cities.

Integrated analysis of doubly disadvantaged neighborhoods by considering both green space and blue space accessibility and COVID-19 infection risk.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the physical and mental health of the public. Nevertheless, the presence of green and blue spaces has been shown to be able to encourage physical activities and alleviate the mental distress caused by COVID-19. However, just as the impact of COVID-19 varies by geographical region and area, the distribution of green and blue spaces is also different across different neighborhoods and areas. By using Hong Kong as the study area, we determine the local neighborhoods that suffer from both high COVID-19 infection risk as well as low green and blue space accessibility. The results show that some of the poorest neighborhoods in the territory such as Sham Shui Po, Kwun Tong and Wong Tai Sin are also among the most doubly disadvantaged in terms of COVID-19 infection risk as well as green and blue space accessibility.

Public Space Usage and Well-Being: Participatory Action Research With Vulnerable Groups in Hyper-Dense Environments

The importance of neighbourhood-level public space and its benefits have been discussed at large during the Covid-19 pandemic. While demands for public space increase, restrictions imposed by the containment policies such as social distancing and public space use have made profound health impacts on the general public. Such impact may further widen the gaps of existing health and social inequalities and engender well-being issues in vulnerable populations living in dense urban environments. To better understand vulnerable groups’ perception and experience of access to public spaces and its association with well-being, we conducted participatory action research during the pandemic (October 2020 to April 2021) via surveys, focus group discussions, mapping, and co-creation workshops in Sham Shui Po, a hyper-dense and poverty-stricken district in Hong Kong. Participants reported demands for public space use and its significance to well-being and pointed to several environmental and social factors that hindered their usage, including perceived safety, hygiene concerns, and issues between different genders and ethnic groups in the neighbourhood. Pandemic-containment measures and the fear of infections may contribute to heightened anxiety and stress to some degree among the participants. Directions for local interventions of spatial improvement were identified. Our study further highlights the strength of participatory action research for the development of more user-oriented planning solutions and the potential of community mapping and co-creation activities to empower vulnerable groups and enhance their spatial competence.

Learning from Older Adults’ Use of Urban Parks in Hong Kong’s Low-income Areas

Spatial justice, specifically accessibility, Universal Design and the fulfilment of human rights for vulnerable groups are increasingly important issues in urban research and city-level agendas concerning public spaces. Although the development of older adult–friendly urban environments is part of the agenda to promote healthy ageing societies, public spaces (e.g., urban parks) often exclude those in the advanced age group in the community. This article aims to clarify the everyday activities of older adults in urban parks by focusing on the extreme case of Sham Shui Po. Sham Shui Po is a low-income, high-density and public space–scarce neighbourhood in Hong Kong, a city characterised by a rapidly ageing population and high socio-spatial inequality. Through on-site observations and notetaking, two small urban parks, namely the Nam Cheong Street Park (NCSA) and Tai Hung Tang Park (THTP), were studied. NCSA, located in a congested vehicular street median, is predominantly for social activities. It forms a part of the daily route of residents and inhabitants from different ethnicities. Unaccompanied older adults, with limited mobilities, regularly use NCSA to navigate the neighbourhood. THTP is a site for older adults to engage in physical activities and also accommodates large groups and caregivers. Defensive architecture and design layout may affect the group size in the parks, while sittable edges may directly contribute to the park use by older adults with physical impairment, particularly near street crossings. The findings from this extreme neighbourhood highlight the critical role of landscape infrastructure for healthy ageing societies.
 
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Fluid Land: Vietnamese Refugee Camps and Hong Kong

Between the 1970s and 1990s, more than 230,000 Vietnamese asylum seekers arrived in Hong Kong and were detained in former military barracks, industrial buildings, and on remote islands. Although many of the refugee camps were in dense urban areas, the Vietnamese were segregated from Hong Kong's dazzling city life, and their presence was not known to many Hong Kong people. There is no plaque, sign, or demarcation of these structures. This paper retrieves the history of the Vietnamese refugee camps and considers them as an integral part of Hong Kong's urbanscape. In this effort, this research focuses on two case studies: Jubilee Camp in Sham Shui Po and San Yick Camp in Tuen Mun. We argue that the Crown land rule—the government as the owner of almost all land in Hong Kong—defined the Vietnamese refugee camps and their legacy in Hong Kong.

The Impacts of Housing Characteristics and Built-Environment Features on Mental Health.

In this study, we examined the relationships between housing characteristics, neighborhood built-environment features, and people’s mental health in Hong Kong, an Asian city well known for its high-density and high-rise housing. The potential mediating effects of people’s perceived living environment were also considered in the analysis. We collected data from 221 participants from two communities in Hong Kong, i.e., Sham Shui Po (SSP) and Tin Shui Wai (TSW), using a stratified random sampling approach. Big datasets were also used to derive relevant built-environment features at the street block level. We used structural equation modeling to explore the complex relationships among housing characteristics, built-environment features, and mental health. The results indicate that the associations between built-environment quality and people’s mental health are weak. For communities with relatively poor housing conditions (i.e., SSP in this study), the impact of housing characteristics on mental health may be more direct; for communities with relatively good housing conditions (i.e., TSW in this study), the effect of housing characteristics on mental health may be indirect. Our findings shed light on the importance of considering different contexts in developing policies related to housing and built environment and mental health.

Does urban renewal impact social interaction in public open space? Evidence from Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

Urban renewal positively impacts the development of cities, enhancing building quality in deprived urban areas. However, relatively little research has been conducted on the relationship between urban renewal and social interaction in public open space. Does urban renewal have a positive impact on face-to-face social interaction? This study aims to answer this question, using the revelatory case of Sham Shui Po, a neighbourhood in Hong Kong undergoing fast urban renewal. We identified 5,372 individuals engaging in social interaction on a total number of 9,343 observations. We employed behaviour mapping and statistical analysis to investigate the association between building age and social interactions. The results show a strong linear correlation between the two variables demonstrating that in Sham Shui Po, urban renewal is detrimental to life between buildings.

Cultural, Business, and Political Characteristics of Hong Kong Street Art: A Mini Review

With its towering skyscrapers and busy streets, many people think that Hong Kong is all that it appears to be. But look closely and you'll see that behind all this glitz and glamour, Hong Kong has a wealth of fascinating things to offer. As Asia's most vibrant centre for art and culture, Hong Kong has demonstrated its creative spirit in everything from world-class galleries and exhibitions to international art events, especially in street art. Over the past few years, street art has given Hong Kong's cityscape a bold and innovative look - the East meets West murals in Central, the graffiti art in Wong Chuk Hang Industrial Estate, the colourful and creative works in Sham Shui Po. The paper explains and demonstrates cultural and business aspects of Hong Kong Street Art based on its characteristics. Further recommendation of the continuing transformation of Hong Kong Street Art is proposed in the last section of this paper as well.

Analyse vehicle–pedestrian crash severity at intersection with data mining techniques

Pedestrians are vulnerable road users subject to severer injuries and higher fatality risk in motor vehicle crashes due to limited protection. An important portion of vehicle–pedestrian crashes occurred at intersections due to the complex movements of various types of road users and the conflicts among them. To address the safety concern, this paper investigates the contributing factors to the severity of vehicle–pedestrian crashes at intersections based on a 3-year crash dataset of Hong Kong. For the crash severity modelling process, the crash dataset is mass and complicated. To tackle the class imbalance issue of the crash severity level, data resampling method is firstly applied. Then, various data mining algorithms, namely, classification and regression tree (CART) model, gradient boosting (GB) model, random forest (RF) model, artificial neural network (ANN) model and support vector machine (SVM) model, have been applied. The performance of these models have also been compared with the logistic regression model commonly applied in the literature. The ANN model which has the best performance is selected to determine the most significant contributing factors to the fatal and severe crashes, and the marginal effects of these factors are also analysed. Results show that the likelihood of fatal and severe vehicle–pedestrian crashes at intersections increase when there is light rain and where the junction control type is traffic signal and no control. On the other hand, the crash severity tends to decrease when the weather condition is clear, the light condition is daylight and dark, and in the districts of Kwun Tong, Kowloon City, Central and Western, and Sham Shui Po. Based on the results, policy implications and counter-measures on reducing the fatal and severe vehicle–pedestrian crashes at intersections have been recommended.

Prevalence and associations of myopia in Hong Kong primary school students.

To examine the prevalence of myopia in primary school children in Hong Kong, and the risk factors for myopia development. A cross-sectional study. Subjective refraction and axial length were measured in all participants. Structured questionnaire was completed by the parents to assess risk factors of myopia. A total of 1396 children (491 boys) from Grade 1 to Grade 6 from 4 primary schools in Sham Shui Po district of Hong Kong participated. All participants underwent non-cycloplegic refraction. The overall prevalence of myopia (spherical equivalent, SE ≤ -0.5 diopter [D]) was 37.7%, which significantly increased with age, from 13.3% at grade 1 to 54.7% at grade 6. The prevalence of moderate myopia (-3.0D < SE < -6.0D) increased from 1.6% at grade 1 to 18.2% at grade 6 and the prevalence of high myopia (SE < = -6.0 D and/or AL ≥ 26.5mm) increased from 0.94% (7/747) in grade 1-3 students to 1.85% (12/649) in grade 4-6 students. Among the students with myopia, only 23.6% of the parents knew their children had refractive errors and only 19.8% of the children wore glasses. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed myopia development was significantly associated with older age (OR = 1.36, P = 0.008), better academicranking in classin the preceding semester (OR = 1.01, P = 0.02) and absence of routine eye check (OR = 2.70, P = 0.001). The prevalence of myopia in primary school students in Hong Kong is high. There is a low level of awareness of refractive errors among parents, and high proportion of under-correction, resulting in suboptimal vision.

Urban park layout and exposure to traffic-derived air pollutants

Air quality in small urban parks improves rapidly with distance from surrounding streets. This arises because air pollutants disperse within parks where there are few sources. This was traditionally thought to arise from pollutant uptake by trees, but they can also reduce wind speed and potentially trap pollutants. It is increasingly evident that relatively little pollution is absorbed by trees over short distances typical of small urban parks. Nevertheless, trees and park infrastructure, also constrain the distribution of park users and thus lower their exposure. In this paper, we explore the exposure to traffic-derived air pollutants in the Hong Kong parks (Sha Tin and Sham Shui Po) and examine the way in which PM2.5 concentration and user distribution is affected by the spatial layout of park features. The modelled pollutant distribution was validated against measurements made in Sha Tin Park. Population-weighted exposure to traffic-derived pollution was quantified by overlapping pollutant and park user distribution. The results reveal how different design features (i.e. vegetation, earth berms and recreation areas) affect exposure during individual time period; most positively in Sha Tin Park where the design leads to a >50% reduction in exposure, early morning. In Sham Shui Po Park, exposure increases as park users are often attracted to facilities near a busy trunk road. This study reveals the heterogeneity of park user exposure to traffic-derived air pollution, which leads to uncertainty in health benefits provided by urban parks and suggests fine-scale exposure considered in thoughtful park design.

The “Urban density” question in Hong Kong: From absolute space to social processes

Urban density has been the focus of attention in urban agenda. Being a typical high-density city, Hong Kong is chosen as case study to review the conceptualization of urban density question. Oversimplification of density as physical and technical construct has overlooked the multi-dimensional nature of density. There is a need to reconceptualise urban density beyond technical and absolute space so as to better understand its diverse meanings and implications by situating it in a wider urban settings and processes. Using the case of Sham Shui Po, one of the densest districts in Hong Kong, this paper highlights the need for a new research agenda which calls for reinterpretation of urban density in processes.

Planning strategies for roadside tree planting and outdoor comfort enhancement in subtropical high-density urban areas

Hot summers in the subtropics cause thermal discomfort, which is intensified by the urban heat island effect in heavily built-up areas. Use of urban greenery has been proposed as a mechanism for microclimate regulation. In this study, the microclimatic effect of urban trees was investigated in the context of high-density cities in subtropical hot and humid climates. Measurements were conducted in urban areas with sky view factors (SVF) ranging from 0.2 to 0.8, and mean radiant temperatures were calculated. The measurements show that the effects of urban trees are related to SVF and that the impact of building morphology is more evident under cloudy conditions than under sunny conditions. In heavily built-up areas, the mean radiant temperature (Tmrt) was reduced to a comfortable level (33 °C) by roadside trees in the early afternoon. Simulation results indicate that roadside trees reduce the physiological equivalent temperature (PET) to 29 °C in urban areas with SVFs of 0.2 under cloudy conditions. The SVF-oriented planning method was tested using the existing building geometry of two high-density districts of Hong Kong, Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po, and site-specific design strategies for tree planting were developed. The study results show that a comfortable microclimate can be provided by roadside trees in heavily built-up urban environments in subtropical cities for nearly 70% of the summer. Design suggestions for refining the Green Master Plans of Hong Kong in future planning are provided.

Development and Evaluation of a Train-the-Trainer Workshop for Hong Kong Community Social Service Agency Staff.

Capacity building approaches are useful in large-scale community-based health promotion interventions. However, models to guide and evaluate capacity building among social service agency staff in community settings are rare in the literature. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a 1-day (7 h) train-the-trainer (TTT) workshop for the "Enhancing Family Well-Being Project". The workshop aimed at equipping staff from different community agencies with the knowledge and skills to design, implement, and evaluate positive psychology-based interventions for their clients in Sham Shui Po, an over-crowded and low-income district in Hong Kong. The current TTT extended and improved on our previous successful model by adding research and evaluation methods (including the Logic Model, process evaluation, and randomized controlled trial), which are important to plan and evaluate the community interventions. Evaluation of the TTT was guided by the Integrated Model of Training Evaluation and Effectiveness (IMTEE), with quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data were collected from pretraining (T1), post-training (T2), and 6-month (T3) and 12-month (T4) follow-up surveys. Qualitative data were collected from four focus groups of agency staff after the intervention. Ninety-three staff from 30 community agencies attended the training, and 90 completed the baseline survey. Eighty-eight, 63, and 57 staff performed the evaluations at T2, T3, and T4, respectively. Agency staff were satisfied with the TTT. Immediate enhancement of knowledge, self-efficacy, and positive attitudes toward the training content was found at T2 (Cohen's d ranged from 0.24 to 1.22, all p < 0.05). Enhancement of knowledge of all training contents persisted at T3 and T4 (Cohen's d ranged from 0.34 to 0.63, all p < 0.05). Enhancement of self-efficacy in the use of positive psychology in intervention design persisted at T3 (Cohen's d = 0.22, p = 0.04). The skills learned were utilized to plan and develop subsequent interventions. Twenty-nine interventions were successfully designed and implemented by the agency staff, and delivered to 1,586 participants. The agency staff indicated their intention to utilize the skills they had learned for other interventions (score ≥4 out of 6) and to share these skills with their colleagues. Qualitative feedbacks from 23 agency staff supported the quantitative results. Our brief TTT was effectively delivered to a large number of agency staff and showed effects that persisted up to 12 months. Our training and evaluation models may offer a template for capacity building among social service agency staff for community brief, universal family health promotion interventions in diverse settings.

Prediction of Air Pollutants Concentration Based on an Extreme Learning Machine: The Case of Hong Kong.

With the development of the economy and society all over the world, most metropolitan cities are experiencing elevated concentrations of ground-level air pollutants. It is urgent to predict and evaluate the concentration of air pollutants for some local environmental or health agencies. Feed-forward artificial neural networks have been widely used in the prediction of air pollutants concentration. However, there are some drawbacks, such as the low convergence rate and the local minimum. The extreme learning machine for single hidden layer feed-forward neural networks tends to provide good generalization performance at an extremely fast learning speed. The major sources of air pollutants in Hong Kong are mobile, stationary, and from trans-boundary sources. We propose predicting the concentration of air pollutants by the use of trained extreme learning machines based on the data obtained from eight air quality parameters in two monitoring stations, including Sham Shui Po and Tap Mun in Hong Kong for six years. The experimental results show that our proposed algorithm performs better on the Hong Kong data both quantitatively and qualitatively. Particularly, our algorithm shows better predictive ability, with increased and root mean square error values decreased respectively.