The Urban Renewal Authority (URA), the city’s redevelopment body, has announced a series of free “citywalk” tours in Central and Sheung Wan to showcase Hong Kong’s history and vibrance.
The body will hold 40 guided tours in October catering to over 500 local residents or tourists, URA’s managing director Wai Chi-sing said on Sunday.
These tours will highlight the URA’s redevelopment projects as well as historic spots, shops and street art in Central and Sheung Wan, Wai said.
The tours will feature the three themes – history and architecture; food and community; and art and culture.
The URA will recruit and train tour guides, targeting Central and Sheung Wan residents in particular, Wai added.
The Central and Sheung Wan neighbourhood is home to a number of the URA’s completed redevelopment projects, including Central Market and Pak Tsz Lane Park near PMQ. It is also the site of a 67,200 square metres redevelopment project in the vicinity of Peel Street and Graham Street. The redevelopment involves plans for residential buildings, courtyard spaces, a multi-purpose activity hall, a hotel and other structures.
Citywalk, a style of tourism that promotes exploring the city on foot and taking photos, has become popular especially among mainland Chinese tourists in the post-pandemic era.
“While conducting urban renewal projects, the URA not only strives to improve people’s living conditions and quality, but to bring vibrance to old communities with different approaches, to strengthen connections among different stakeholders and enhance a community’s uniqueness… thereby boosting the district’s economy and support the development of tourism,” Wai wrote in Chinese.
The Central and Sheung Wan tours will be part of the project’s pilot scheme. The managing director said he also hoped to hold tours in other parts of the city after the scheme, including in Kowloon City and the Flower Market – both districts with large-scale URA redevelopment projects.
‘Urban decay’
Established in 2001, the URA was granted powers by the government to purchase land from private owners and sell land to developers to address “urban decay” and improve living conditions in old districts.
Over the past 10 years, it has been accused of transforming places of culture and history into homogenous shopping malls and high-end residential estates in the process of redevelopment.
Its recent proposal to redevelop the Flower Market district in Mong Kok triggered criticism from residents, florists, scholars, pro-establishment lawmakers who have questioned the looming commercialisation and expressed concern that the project could destroy the vibrancy of the century-old market.
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