Introduction. Challenges, Resources and Opportunities in a Globalized City Situation of the Grassroots in Hong Kong

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1 Introduction Challenges, Resources and Opportunities in a Globalized City Situation of the Grassroots in Hong Kong Anthony Wong Business Director, Policy Research and Advocacy The Hong Kong Council of Social Service Oct 2016

2 A WEALTHY HONG KONG AND A POOR HONG KONG PEOPLE

3 Economic Development Subindex of SDI( ) 2014 (SDI 2016) 2012 (SDI 2014) (SDI 2012) (SDI 2010) (SDI 2008) (SDI 2006)

4 Selected Indicators GDP Per Capita 220, , , , , ,712 Gross International Reserve Proportion of Income Possessed by the bottom 50%

5 Poverty in HK

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8 Contextualizing Poverty in Global City This is to ask a question: How do we compare the poor in London, New York, Paris, Shanghai, Singapore, Seoul, and the poor in HK? It is not enough to point out that they have similar manifestation, in terms of: Poverty rate Unemployment Housing problem It is important to point out the global process they share that result in similar manifestation

9 Context of Globalization The world has always been connected since very very long time What is new about our understanding of globalization is: Speed Scale Scope Complexity (Cities in a Globalizing World: Global Report on Human Settlements 2001, UN Habitat)

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11 Implications to the Global Cities Expanded space condensed time The global city is accessible to other parts of the world The world is accessible to the global city Dislocations and destabilizations of existing orders People do not deal with local society but the world society Extra-territorial resources from outside of the global city could be drawn and deployed for local use.

12 Survival Capacity in the Global City Not just endowment of wealth Not just material possession or income But the possession of a capacity that guarantees good return the Dokodemo Door (Anywhere Door or Door at Will) a productive capacity that sees no problem of diminishing return

13 Uneven Factor Return Factor of Production Indicator of factor return in past 10 years Capital Profit tax increased by nearly 100% ($70,000m to $138,000m) Land Rent Index: increased by more than 100% (90 to 190) Labour Wage Index increased by 0.3%

14 Pace of Return While return to land and capital (finance) has increased by a double or more, return to human resource has been almost the same in the past 10 years The rate of increase of return to labor (human asset) is far slower than that of the return to land or financial assets

15 Accumulation of Land or Financial Assets Initial wealth/endowment Inherited land and property Inherited other assets Family support Saved portion of income Future potentials Discounted value of your future income Accumulation of Human Asset Education

16 Racing for the Top What options people would have? Accumulate land or financial assets Accumulate human asset

17 Facing for the Top Leverage on the accumulated assets of parents to acquire land/property/financial assets Struggle to participate in the existing game of competition, hoping one day to gain a competitive advantage to survive in the global economy

18 Global Process of Value Assignment If one doesn t have land/property/financial asset, all s/he can do is to add value to herself/himself, hence improve his/her own human asset quality. Education is therefore usually said to be way to go. Education as a rhetoric It depends. What level of attainment? What programme? A programme from which university? A university in which country? And so on.. For each of the answers to each question, there is always already a value/price tag attached You can get educated, but the value of it is not determined by the individual. Not even by the local society, indeed!

19 Global Process of Value Assignment The value of land and financial assets is largely not defined by what s in the local society Capital comes and goes quickly and easily, and the value of assets (housing, security, currency etc.) appreciates/depreciates quickly and drastically 2 financial crises in the last two decades show the reality The value of human asset is also defined not just by the local factors but also the global factors

20 Global Process of Value Assignment Value of labour/human resource has always been a matter of substitutability, but in the globalized context, the meaning of substitutability is substantially altered. A substitutable labor always find himself/herself less valued because of demand and supply In a globalized context, the value of labor it is not just the local supply of a certain labour that matters but also the global supply (viability of foreign labour as a substitute) A certain demand of labour does not have to be met locally, but also globally (viability of regional and global outsourcing of work) Value of labor/human resource is defined in a whole new / expanded field of the globe.

21 Global City: Constraints and Potentials/Opportunities these features of cities are under threat by a range of acute processes that deurbanize cities, no matter how dense and urban they may look; these threats include extreme forms of inequality and privatization, new types of urban violence, asymmetric war, and massive surveillance systems. (Sassen, 2011) city is still a key space for the material practices of freedom, including its anarchies and contradictions, and a space which powerless can make speech, presence, a politics. (Sassen, 2011)

22 The Conventional Alternatives Advocate use of public authority/ power to redistribute rewards Organize labour and the people to seize the power and change the rules of distribution and redistribution

23 Global Street I would argue that the street, the urban street, as public space is to be differentiated from the classic European notion of the more ritualized spaces for public activity, with the piazza and the boulevard the emblematic European instances. I think of the space of the street, which of course includes squares and any available open space, as a rawer and less ritualized space. The Street can, thus, be conceived as a space where new forms of the social and the political can be made, rather than a space for enacting ritualized routines. With some conceptual stretching, we might say that politically, street and square are marked differently from boulevard and piazza : The first signals action and the second, rituals (Sassen, 2011)

24 What Else? Building alternative routes: Using/sharing public assets for social and economic production Going beyond the global demand and supply logics, regaining right and power to define one s own value: Farming Social enterprise Cooperative Street market Engagement in social mission-driven work Exploring other alternatives Spatial Economic Social Essentially political