Who owns culture and heritage? Observations on Hong Kong's experience

The public value of history, culture and heritage interacts in complex ways with the private ownership of so many of the facilities which give substance to these matters. This article begins by reflecting on the processes involved in seeking to associate government, community and the market in preserving this value, and goes on to illustrate the serious difficulties encountered in several recent Hong Kong cases. One implication is that so-called public-private partnerships often involve just government-private interactions, with government failing in any meaningful way to represent 'the public'.