Zoning and Property Rights: Chinese Agriculture

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface to the Second Edition The decision to produce the second edition of this book reflects a growing interest of the professional and academic community in the issue of property rights in town planning. In this edition, care is taken to remove errors discovered and to expand the bibliography. Footnotes are also added so as to elaborate on certain key concepts. Two appendices are added. Appendix One is on the use of aerial photographs as court evidence by the government against unauthorized development in rural New Territories. Appendix Two is a technical note on the government's housing planning model in terms of basic price theories. An appreciation of the economic concepts of the model should help understand the ‘supply' aspect of the property price question, which has been a major issue in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region ChiefExecutive's Policy Agenda. The author acknowledges the useful comments on Appendix One by his colleagues, Mr Leung Hing Fung, a practising barrister, and Mr Frederik Pretorius, who once served in the air surveillance unit of the South African Airforce, for his opinion on the interpretation of aerial photographs. Lawrence Wai-chung Lai January 1998 The University of Hong Kong ...