• Late submission penalty: 7-calendar-day policy (incl. sat and sun, public holidays)
• You are required to consult relevant readings when you attempt the question. A marginal pass will be guaranteed if you use lecture notes and a few reference materials derivatively. You are expected to conduct further desktop research and show good evidence of independent reading
• Your paper should have at least 5 scholarly materials consisting of books, book chapters, and journal articles IN ADDITION TO website materials, government reports, periodicals, newspaper articles etc.
• For effective consultation, please present an annotated essay outline (with a clear thesis statement in the introduction, a complete topic sentence for each paragraph)
• A useful website to get public access to e-journal articles: https://sci-hub.se/
• Important note for the structure and organization of the essay: an essay should start with an introduction that briefly indicates the importance of the issue(s) discussed and the proceeding of the essay, and ended with a conclusion, with several sections in between. You are also required to provide You are also required to provide IN-TEXT CITATIONS AND A LIST OF REFERENCES CONSULTED.
• Academic English is about referencing and formality, including APA/ Harvard format, nominalization, formal words, third person narration etc. If there were errors in these areas, probably you couldn’t get a high grade even though your spoken English is fluent.
• The number of “points” or “key points” you get in the essay does not guarantee a high grade if you cannot even structure a solid argument in the essay. An argument consists of a claim, a reason and substantiated with hard evidence. Quality in writing matters!

Essay topics: CHOOSE ANY ONE

GET THE FACT RIGHT! HONG KONG IS NOT A COUNTRY! HONG KONG IS A CITY.

Choose any ONE of the following questions:

1. The Urban Environmental Transition (UET) gives a stereotypical account of the environmental priorities of poor, intermediate and affluent cities. Critically discuss the model and explain, with examples, how and in what ways the urban environmental transition experiences between Western and rapidly

developing Asian cities are different.

• What are the two worldviews regarding the man-nature relationship? Why is environmental destruction difficult for the political system to deal with? Explain with examples.

• Considering the world’s major development and environmental issues since 1960s, discuss why the issue of equity has become so prominent in formulating the concept of sustainable development. Explain with examples.
• There are four models depicting the inter-relationships between cities and their environmental hinterlands: self-reliance, redesigning the city, external dependency, and the Fair Shares city. If you were hired as HKSAR Government’s chief urban planner and were tasked to formulate a sustainable urban development strategy for the city, which of the four models will you recommend for the general public? Explain and justify your recommendation.

• Identify a pressing urban planning problem in a city of your choice. With reference to the arguments put forward in the framework of the “Planner’s Triangle” (Campbell 1996), explore and explain the impact of policy actions taken by local authorities, supplemented by a detailed analysis of why the authorities have succeeded in, or failed to, undertaking and implementing such actions.