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Tin Shui Wai new town in Hong Kong, known as the "city of sadness," has been narrated by the "Tin Shui Wai Myth" that attributes its urban problems to the planning failures after the colonial government rescued the developers, including a Chinese red capital, from a market slump in the early 1980s. This myth creates misunderstandings, which confuse recent debates about new town development and regional integration with China. To debunk this myth, this article, based on archival research, analyzes the scalar politics of new town planning and explains why the government decided to purchase the land and develop it in a partnership with the developers. It sheds new light on how the regional dynamics in South China after the economic reforms prompted China and Britain to react to the new town proposal at interconnected and contested spatial scales, before the diplomatic negotiations about this British colony's future officially started.

Purpose This study aims to explore how urban governance of Hong Kong is impacted by the formulation and implementation of the new constitutional order of "one country, two systems" that distinguishes between the British colonial government and the current government under Chinese sovereignty. Design/methodology/approach While the literature recognises the society of Hong Kong has been heavily relying on land and property activities, few attempts notice the uniqueness of Hong Kong's sequential constitutional orders and its relations to those activities. This study presents a geographical enquiry and an archival study to illustrate the spatiality of the new constitutional order and its implications on land injustice. Drawing from the works of legal geography and urban studies, this study extends and clarifies Anne Haila's conception of Hong Kong as "property state" to "property jurisdiction". Findings Though common law and leasehold land system were perpetuated from the colonial period, the new constitutional order changed their practices and the underlying logic and ideology. The urban governance order of this property jurisdiction is intended for prosperity and stability of the society, and for the economic benefit and territorial integrity claim of the Chinese sovereignty. Originality/value This study enriches the literature of Hong Kong studies in three major areas, namely, the relationship with China, urban governance and land injustice. It offers a conceptual discussion, which contributes to comparative territorial autonomies studies. It also contributes to legal geography by providing insights beyond the western liberal democracy model.

PurposeThis study aims to explore how urban governance of Hong Kong is impacted by the formulation and implementation of the new constitutional order of "one country, two systems" that distinguishes between the British colonial government and the current government under Chinese sovereignty.Design/methodology/approachWhile the literature recognises the society of Hong Kong has been heavily relying on land and property activities, few attempts notice the uniqueness of Hong Kong's sequential constitutional orders and its relations to those activities. This study presents a geographical enquiry and an archival study to illustrate the spatiality of the new constitutional order and its implications on land injustice. Drawing from the works of legal geography and urban studies, this study extends and clarifies Anne Haila's conception of Hong Kong as "property state" to "property jurisdiction".FindingsThough common law and leasehold land system were perpetuated from the colonial period, the new constitutional order changed their practices and the underlying logic and ideology. The urban governance order of this property jurisdiction is intended for prosperity and stability of the society, and for the economic benefit and territorial integrity claim of the Chinese sovereignty.Originality/valueThis study enriches the literature of Hong Kong studies in three major areas, namely, the relationship with China, urban governance and land injustice. It offers a conceptual discussion, which contributes to comparative territorial autonomies studies. It also contributes to legal geography by providing insights beyond the western liberal democracy model.

By analysing the relevant case law, this article argues that the promise must be understood as a more-than-human practice rather than merely a human affair of exchanging commitments to make agreements. Promise is always rolled into, and complicated by, the heterogenous networks formed up by humans and nonhumans in the world. Within the broader scope of this special issue – to build dialogues between comparative law and legal geography – this article, by analysing the legality and spatiality of promise, unpacks spatio-legal tangles, which are dynamic, contextual, and territorial, producing knowledge about law and society. It assesses three cases of promise in different spatio-legal settings: first, a piece of legislation about seismic risk management in Türkiye; second, a judicial decision regarding land use rezoning in Hong Kong; and, third, some disputes over property rental arrangement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong. These cases are analysed through three interrelated aspects of making sense of the social world: relationality, materiality, and performativity. Different material objects, which can help relate and unrelate actants, are embedded in the performance of the law's territory. The identification of these three components begins with the provocative vision shared by the scholarship of both comparative law and legal geography that aims to understand how the world is ordered, as well as with the awareness of comparison and spatiality. When using these three notions, the theoretical framing is not only limited to the analysis of the promise, but it can also be extended to make sense of other aspects of law and society.

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.