It comprises four inter-linked research themes:
- Housing policy, transferability and social development
The focuses are: a) the performance and evolution of housing policy in Hong Kong and China in their social, political and economic contexts and, their economic, political and social functions; b) housing-related issues which have policy and market implications, such as urban planning politics and housing demand and affordability; c) comparison and conceptualization of housing systems/policies across the major Asian economies, investigating the differences and changes in the roles of the government and the market, and policy transferability across housing systems and its conceptualization; and d) the impact and implications of housing policy on social development in Asia. To promote housing research in the region, she founded the Asia Pacific Network for Housing Research in 2001, and established its conference series as a significant international platform for housing research.
- Urban planning, politics and urban sustainability
It applies the sustainable development concepts to analyze Asia’s housing outcomes and urban development, and in turn, it enriches the sustainability conceptual debates. The empirical investigations are drawn from Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Bangladesh and the One Belt One Road Region, and are contextualized in Asia’s high-density and/or high-rise and compact built environment. It investigates: a) urban forms and sustainability performance; b) the environmental sustainability of housing development; c) social sustainability performance; and d) urban governance. These studies provide conceptual and Asian perspectives to the sustainable development discourse, as well as contribute to the Western debates on compact and high-rise urban development.
- Urban policy and management in the One Belt One Road region
This includes: a) the spatial planning, development strategy and urban politics of primate Chinese cities, notably Hong Kong and Shanghai; and b) Tianjin’s rural development strategy. A new research program has been developed to investigate urban management in South, South-east, and Central Asian cities along the One Belt and One Road route with the aim of transferring best practices such as those of Hong Kong and China to these cities.
4. Urban livability and ageing communities
Urban livability has become an increasingly important issue with the expanding ageing cohorts and family size reduction across many countries. The livability of the built environment at different spatial scales has become a major urban planning and design concern. Continued research, including a large scale study investigating into housing issues in ageing Hong Kong, covering housing tenure trends, elderly living arrangements, ageing in place, purpose-design elderly housing, neighbourhood accessibility to elderly services and facilities, and comparison with other major ageing communities, has been conducted, producing empirical and theoretical outcomes. Further research in other cities and into other aspects such as the nexus between housing wealth and post-retirement protection are being explored.