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1. Introduction
Hong Kong, as one of the densest cities in the world, is restricted by the severe shortage of land supply. Although Hong Kong experiences economic prosperity, it is always facing serious inequalities and income disparity (Delang and Lung, 2010). With limited land resources and inequalities, the price/rent of housing in Hong Kong is unsurprisingly expensive for a large part of the population. Thus, these circumstances have led to the significant intervention of the Hong Kong government, by providing public housing[1] for low-income residents.
The development of public housing in Hong Kong can be traced back to 1953, occurring through direct funding and indirect subsidies of land. Currently, about six decades later, public housing has become a large proportion of the housing supply in Hong Kong, and thus affects a large proportion of the population. Based on the statistics of the Hong Kong Housing Authority in 2010, 29 per cent of the households were tenants in government-provided housing and 18 per cent owned subsidised housing through the Home Ownership Scheme and relevant programmes (Lui and Suen, 2011). Internationally, public housing plays a crucial role in supplying housing to people of low income. Issues relating to public housing attract much interest and cover a wide range, including a spatial decision support system for public housing (Barton et al. , 2005), the liveability of high-rise public housing (Yuen et al. , 2006), factors influencing the quality of public housing (Chan et al. , 2006), public rental policies (Jie, 2010) and the effects of public housing on residential segregation (Oakley et al. , 2010). In the context of Hong Kong, related research covers the origin of the public housing sector (Smart, 1989), welfare costs and redistributive effects (Wong and Liu, 1988), specific housing policies (e.g. La Grange and Lee, 1999; Yip and Lau, 2002), privatisation of public housing (Grange, 1999; Ho, 2004) and the effects of public housing on poverty concentration (Delang and Lung, 2010).
Since the annual demand for public housing is great, some new public housing estates are provided through the development of vacant land or in redevelopment projects. When deciding the location of public housing development in an urban renewal process, several key issues such as the surrounding facilities, convenience of households, nearby...