2 - Hong Kong in the Greater Bay Area (GBA)

Presentation Abstract
Following China’s strategic planning of integrated zones, Hong Kong is to develop as part of the GBA.  Introduced officially in 2016 and formulated in the 2019 Outline Development Plan, the GBA is to parallel New York, San Francisco and the Tokyo Bay in high-tech advances and creativity.  Projected by the authorities as an energized landscape inscribed into national history, this region has in reality served as a nexus of flows in its various incarnations before the GBA.  Within this region operating under its various names, different hubs emerged in response to political and technological developments. Exploring the changing role of Hong Kong in the region, this paper analyzes the city’s opportunities and challenges vis-à-vis its in-region rivals in the context of shifting geopolitical and economic configurations within and beyond the GBA.  As geopolitics transforms the "political topology" of the GBA, economic forces animate the flow of migrants into Hong Kong and the other urban hubs.  Interacting with regional and global forces, commercial maneuvers mediate dynamic factors and reshape Hong Kong, challenging its sustainability and at the same time providing opportunities to agile business operators.  Rather than approaching the GBA as an unprecedented configuration into which Hong Kong must integrate, this article reveals the longstanding and ongoing process of the making (and remaking) of networks through the region and Hong Kong’s shifting role in light of recent developments.