Impeded self-help: toleration and the proscription of housing consolidation in Hong Kongʹs squatter areas

This article develops the literature on housing consolidation in squatter areas by examining a case where the improvement of squatter dwellings has been consistently proscribed, rather than encouraged, since 1954. Hong Kong devotes significant resources to patrolling and monitoring irregular settlements to ensure that residents do not expand or improve the quality of building materials of their dwellings. I first review what is known about the conditions under which squatter housing is improved. I then suggest an explanation for this unusual situation in the context of the history of squatting and its control in postwar Hong Kong. I then use recent ethnographic fieldwork to provide an account of the way in which the proscription of squatter housing improvement is implemented on the ground.