LOS ANGELES-HONG KONG/CHINA BOOK
THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT IN THE GLOBAL CITY:
LOS ANGELES, HONG KONG, AND CHINA
Robert Gottlieb (UEPI) and Simon Ng (Civic-Exchange), Co-Authors/Editors
Los Angeles and Hong Kong are two of the most complex and fascinating global cities,
with their key roles in global economies and in the range and severity of the
environmental issues they confront. These include important issues and challenges
regarding the urban environment that are critical concerns not just for the U.S. and for
Hong Kong and China, but also for other mega-cities around the world.
Los Angeles, with its focus on the Pacific Rim (more than 50 years ago the Los Angeles
Times characterized the city as a “Pacific Littoral”), and Hong Kong, with its complex
and ever evolving relationship to mainland China (the People’s Republic of China or
PRC) and to other Chinese global cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, are themselves
global powerhouses. They have huge ports. Air quality impacts are endemic. Their
patterns of growth – sprawl and densification, building wide and building up – provide
important lessons about the urban built environment. Water issues are crucial factors in
the patterns – and limits – of growth. The sources and quality of food for urban
populations are increasingly prominent issues. For both these global cities, the focus on
the urban environment thus provides rich material for the topics discussed in this book:
global trade and the movement of goods; air quality; transportation and land use;
walkability and bikeability; urban planning and density issues; water supply and water
quality; and urban food issues.
This book emerged from a series of connections and relationships established between
two overlapping though distinctive organizations based in Los Angeles and Hong Kong.
Those relationships first developed when the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute
(UEPI) at Occidental College in Los Angeles, as part of an academic-community
partnership involving five other Southern California groups, invited a speaker from the
Hong Kong-based policy think tank Civic Exchange to discuss Civic Exchange’s
engagement regarding the environmental impacts and strategies for change at the Hong
Kong port and its lessons for the U.S.. The talk took place at an international conference
called “Moving Forward Together” about the community and environmental impacts
from global trade and freight traffic, sponsored by UEPI and its five partner groups. Since
then, UEPI and Civic Exchange have continued to cooperate and share information about
the similarities and differences in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, the U.S., and the PRC
regarding not just port and goods movement issues but a number of other urban
environmental issues that both organizations are addressing. These are the issues that
largely constitute the topics in this book. Both organizations have also established a
number of academic, research, policy analysis, and community action partnerships whose
work and insights are also reflected in the book as well.
The Urban Environment in the Global City will be have two primary authors, Robert
Gottlieb and Simon Ng, who will also draw on and reflect the work of UEPI and Civic
Exchange and its various partners and collaborators in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and
China. It will also include a discussion of the two institutes and the need for such policy
oriented and community engaged think tank-type organizations able to address the issues
of the urban environment in the U.S. and China (and with an ability to exchange
information and collaborate, given the increasingly globalized nature of cities like Los
Angeles and Hong Kong and other mega-cities in the PRC.)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
The Introduction will provide background to the discussion of the urban environment of
Los Angeles and Hong Kong, and other megacities in the PRC. It will discuss why
environmental issues have risen to the top of the agendas of these cities and what themes
and topics are valuable for purposes of comparison as well as identifying which are
distinctive and why. The Introduction would also include a brief discussion of the authors
and the editors and a synopsis of each of the sections and the chapters. Each section
would also include a brief introduction.
SECTION 1: CROSSING BORDERS
Chapters 1: Global Trade, Ports, and the Movement of Goods: Los Angeles
Chapter 2: Global Trade, Ports, and the Movement of Goods: Hong Kong and Shanghai
These chapters will discuss the central role of ports and goods movement in Los Angeles,
Hong Kong, and Shanghai and their role in the development of these global cities as well
as the environmental impacts associated with port and goods movement activities. Both
chapters will be divided into a historical discussion including how the port and goods
movement system has evolved and its overall reach, as well as an overview of the
environmental and community impacts of the system, including from ships, trucks, rail,
and warehouses.
SECTION 2: QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT
Chapter 3: Air Quality
Air Quality issues have long been a major environmental concern in Los Angeles and
have more recently emerged as perhaps the most serious environmental problem in Hong
Kong and PRC cities such as Shanghai and Beijing. The chapter will discuss the nature of
the air quality problems in each city, how they are being identified, including their health
and community impacts, and how they are being addressed through community action
and policy change.
Chapter 4: Transportation – Cars, Bikes, and Pedestrians
The long standing dominance of the car in Los Angeles is now being replicated in China
and has also become increasingly visible in Hong Kong, despite its extensive transit
infrastructure. The role of the car will be contrasted with the issues associated with
walking and biking as a form of alternative transportation in each of the cities.
Chapter 5: The Built Environment – Planning, Density,Sprawl and Land Use
One of the interesting contrasts for the book will be its exploration of how each of the
cities have been planned and reshaped, whether extending horizontally (Los Angeles),
vertically (Hong Kong), expanding in breathtaking speed (Shenzhen) or seeking to
identify an eco-city approach (Guangzhou). This will include shared trajectories as well
as contrasting modes with respect to sprawl and overall land use strategies.
Chapter 6: Water Supply and Water Quality
Los Angeles, Hong Kong and numerous Chinese cities have all experienced significant
environmental problems related to water supply and water quality. The impact
particularly of pollution, from industrial and municipal discharges to agricultural-related
pesticide runoff, has created an interplay between water supply and water quality (e.g.,
“water-quality-driven water shortage” as it has often been identified) that will also be
explored in this chapter.
Chapter 7: Food Systems – Food Safety, Food Growing, Changing Diets and Health
Outcomes
The ways in which food is grown, processed, marketed, sold, and consumed have become
highly charged and contested issues in the U.S. and China, including in Los Angeles,
Hong Kong, and other Chinese cities. Environmental factors loom large at each stage of
the food system and various food supply chains, which will provide the focus for this
chapter.
SECTION 3: COMMUNITY ACTION AND POLICY CHANGE
Chapter 8: Policy Interventions
With growing awareness and community action on many of the environmental issues
profiled in the book, there is increasing momentum to develop policy changes and
institutional action at many levels. The chapter would also include profiles of community
leaders who have become major policy innovators, such as Civic Exchange founder and
current Hong Kong Deputy Environmental Minister Christine Loh.
Chapter 9: Community Action: Civil Society and Social Movements
Environmental-based community movements have had a long and complex history in Los
Angeles, Hong Kong, and China, and have also been central to the notion of a civil
society in each of those places. The chapter will describe and profile some of these key
community players and whether and how they constitute new types of social movements.
Chapter 10: Turning Research into Action: A Conclusion
This final chapter will include a history and profiles of the Urban & Environmental
Policy Institute and Civic Exchange and other policy-oriented research groups and their
collaborators who have established a type of action-research model of investigating and
acting upon the environmental changes in these global cities. The book will conclude
with a discussion of where and how environmental issues and the opportunities and
barriers for change will shape the future of those places.