Academic Staff

Dr Ivy Wong received her PhD in Planning (2014) from the University of British Columbia, Master of Development Planning (2004) with High Distinction from the University of Queensland, and BSc (Hons) in Real Estate (1998) from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. As a General Practice Surveyor, Dr Wong is a professional member of both the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors (HKIS). Starting with her professional practice in a private real estate firm, she subsequently worked for three departments in the Hong Kong SAR Government, including the Lands Department, the Housing Department, and the Rating & Valuation Department. Her specialized areas include land premium assessment for land sale and lease modification, compensation assessment for land acquisition, public housing planning and development, and mass valuation for property taxation. She has good collaborative links with the larger professional community. Over the years, she has participated in a range of consultancy projects (on land redevelopment, urban planning and urban governance), which were commissioned by the MTR Corporation, the Hong Kong Institute of Planners, the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors as well as the local governments of the Guangzhou Municipality and the Beijing Municipality

Dr Wong focuses her academic research on urban-rural planning and governance. Between 2015 and 2020, she secured four external research grants (as Principal Investigator) with a total funding amount of approximately HK$3,330,000. These projects include one Early Career Scheme (ECS) project on rural shareholding cooperatives, one General Research Fund (GRF) project on village redevelopment, and two Ford Foundation projects on community governance in periurban China. The second Ford Foundation (2019-2020) project successfully received a matching grant from the Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee, which supports Dr Wong’s pursuit of comparative studies on community planning and governance in China and the West.

Dr Wong has linked her research output into a set of inter-related development planning issues, including urban-rural planning for sustainable development, rural property rights reforms for social equities, participatory community planning for capacity building, and countryside conservation. Such issues are enormously consequential for not only China but other regions and nations in the midst of their urban transitions. Her research findings have been widely published in top international academic journals. Some of her representative publications are listed as follows:

• Wong, S. W, Dai, Y., Tang, B. S., & Liu, J. L. (2021). A new model of village urbanization? Coordinative governance of state-village relations in Guangzhou City, China. Land Use Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105500
• Wong, S.W., Tang, B.S. Liu, J.L., Liang, M and Ho, W. (2021). From “Decentralization of Governance” to “Governance of Decentralization”: Reassessing Income Inequality in Periurban China. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X20988013 (Open Access)
• Wong, S.W., Tang, B.S. and Liu, J.L. (2021). Neoliberal State Intervention and the Power of Community in Urban Regeneration: A Tale of Three Village Redevelopment Cases in Guangzhou, China. Journal of Planning Education and Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X21994661 (Open Access)
• ​Wong, S. W., Tang, B.S., Liu, J. (2020). Rethinking China’s Rural Revitalization from an Historical Perspective. Journal of Urban History. DOI: 10.1177/0096144220952091
• Wong, S. W., Tang, B. S. and Liu, J. (2020). Village Elections, Grassroots Governance and State Power Restructuring: An Empirical Study in Southern Periurban China. The China Quarterly, 241(March), 22–42.
• Wong, S.W., Tang, B.S. and Liu, J. (2018). Village Redevelopment and Desegregation as a Strategy for Metropolitan Development in Southern China: Some Lessons from Guangzhou City. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(6), 1064-1079.
• Wong, S.W. (2016). Reconsolidation of state power into urbanizing villages: shareholding reforms as a strategy for governance in Pearl River Delta Region. Urban Studies, 53, 689-704.
• Wong, S.W. (2015). Urbanization as a process of state building: local governance reforms in China. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 39(5), 912-926.
• Wong, S.W. (2015). Land requisitions and state-village power restructuring in Southern China. The China Quarterly, 224(December), 888-908.

In developing intensive collaborations with scholars in global research, Dr Wong has devoted to advancing the existing intellectual discourse in urban studies by producing knowledge from the Chinese patterns of urbanization and transformation of governance. She is the co-founder of the China Innovative Urban-rural Governance (CIURG) Research Network, which provides a platform to connect peers and stakeholders who are interested in the intellectual debates, exchange of ideas and research collaboration about urbanization and local governance transformation in China (http://ciurgpolyu.wixsite.com/home).  

• Bachelor of Science in Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• Master of Development Planning, The University of Queensland
• Doctor of Philosophy in Planning, The University of British Columbia

• Member of The Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors
• Member of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors