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AbstractLike other concepts, gentrification must be situated in the socio‐historical context in which it was produced. Since its coinage the concept has travelled widely, yet it has been applied unevenly, and in some cases uncritically, in various locations now including Asian cities. This essay challenges the application of the concept of gentrification to Hong Kong, as attempted by an article previously published in this journal. It responds through two main lines of inquiry. First, it demonstrates how the absence of historical, geographical and socio‐political context weakens the basis for a critical urban geography. Second, in constructing a historical baseline, this essay proposes to conceive urban redevelopment through hegemony‐cum‐alienation, which is a more complicated process than displacement of the working class. Alienated hegemonic redevelopment perpetuates systemic reproduction and associated power politics, yet with the primary source of contradiction residing in landed and property relations. Conclusions suggest the urgency of developing new approaches instead of relying on more empirical studies as evidence for an already over‐developed concept. Analysis of the Hong Kong case suggests how the spent concept of gentrification could be superseded by alternatives.

1. Seoul : a Korean capital / Sharon Hong -- 2. Rajadamnoen Avenue : Thailand's transformative path towards modern polity / Koompong Noobanjong -- 3. Public art, urban renewal, and the construction of a national history : the Revive Manila program and the new Manileno campaign / Tessa Maria Guazon -- 4. An unexpected urban renewal practice : the emergence of a multicultural historic plaza in Taipei / Huey-Jiun Wang -- 5. Critical vernacularism : multiple roots, cascades of thought, and the local production of architecture / Nihal Perera -- 6. Housing rights and citizenship of rural migrants in urban China : the case of Yuanhenong, Shanghai / Zhao Yeqin -- 7. Ordinary lives in extraordinary Cyberabad / Diganta Das -- 8. Street vending in Indonesian cities : their characteristics and activities in Yogyakarta / Deden Rukmana and Djarot Purbadi -- 9. Perceptions of tenure security in a squatter settlement in Lahore, Pakistan / Fatima Wajahat -- 10. The struggle for living space : ethnicity, housing, and the politics of urban renewal in Japan's squatter areas / Takuya Motooka and Toshio Mizuuchi -- 11. Contests over community : a community organization in Hong Kong / Hon-Chu Leung -- 12. Traversing the city : some gendered questions of access in Mumbai / Shilpa Phadke -- 13. Indianizing the neighborhood unit : the Jawahar Nagar plan / Sanjeev Vidyarti -- 14. Planning and self-organizing : the case of small towns in Sri Lanka / Jagath Munasinghe -- 15. Niche authority in urbanized villages : bottom-up codetermination in megacity developments in China / Sonia Schoon.

While there is no lack of studies on Asian cities, the majority focus on financial districts, poverty, the slum, tradition, tourism, and pollution, and use the modern, affluent, and transforming Western city as the reference point. This vast Asian empirical presence is not complemented by a theoretical presence; academic discourses overlook common and basic urban processes, particularly the production of space, place, and identity by ordinary citizens. Switching the vantage point to Asian cities and citizens, Transforming Asian Cities draws attention to how Asians produce their contemporary urb.

Hong Kong society nowadays is overwhelmed by the rhetoric of hegemony, but there is no serious attempt to discuss it, especially in the domain of urban development. This article expands on Henri Lefebvre's concept of urbanizing Gramsci to resolve contradictions of space under increasing urbanization by urban specialists and applies it to investigate the public engagement exercise of Central harbourfront planning in Hong Kong. By dissecting its contents and procedures, the article illustrates how public engagement has insisted on technical rationality, thereby perpetuating the functioning of the land (re)development regime. In consequence, the ordinary residents may have been excluded from 'rational' consideration in the (re)development of Hong Kong.

Religious organizations participate in urban redevelopment in various ways including redeveloping their churches. While the literature has attempted to explain church redevelopment from different perspectives, what has often been forgotten is the fundamental characteristic of churches as property in cities. Drawing on the established scholarship of legal geography, this article argues that the lens of property relations offers an insightful framework to examine church redevelopment. By presenting a case study in Hong Kong, this article unpacks the property struggles of church redevelopment to examine how that resulted from the conflicting property claims and why these claims emerged. This article contrasts and analyzes the religious and market-driven values underlying these claims in the context of a property-led society like Hong Kong. To understand how urban churches transform from God's home to people's house, it is necessary to recognize the diverse readings of property. In so doing, this article invites scholars to re-conceptualize urban struggles from the property lens.