Sitting on the dock of the bay: partial views of change—Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong
Peter W. PRESTON

ABSTRACT
Cities embody the political projects of elites; the spaces that are made frame the lives of their inhabitants; it is within these spaces that ordinary people make their lives. Cities seem dense, resistant and hard but they are always in flux; their transience marks their elites’ responses to the shifting demands/opportunities of changing circumstances; change has its benefits and its costs; these are not borne equally; all these matters can be accessed in many ways, here the route is though the accumulation of ethnographic detail; partial recollection; cities illuminated through the small scale; it is the way in which we all grasp the cities in which we live.

Author’s biography
Peter W. PRESTON is professor in the Department of Government, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also Professor of Political Sociology, University of Birmingham, England

Contact address: Department of Government and Public Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong.