Sustainable urban renewal and built heritage conservation in a global real estate revolution

Abstract

A global real estate revolution has been transforming the urban landscape everywhere. Development and redevelopment projects have mixed with, if not become an integral part of, real estate construction. At the same time, there is a drive to commodification in this revolution, as shown by a growing trend to conserve built heritage in new development projects characterised by the rise of museums. This paper reviews some examples of attempts in various parts of the world to combine real estate development and conservation and applies the fourth Coase theorem to explore how built heritage conservation and urban renewal in Hong Kong, hitherto problematic in terms of their invasion of private property, can become a win-win outcome in the context of this global real estate revolution.