Hong Kong’s wet markets remain important places for residents to purchase fresh food in their daily lives, but renewal has produced uneven outcomes across public markets. Some markets still face vacancy, reduced use and spatial mismatch after hardware upgrading. This thesis starts from the gap between facility upgrading and actual market operation.

This research (adapted from a dissertation) examines the issue through a multi-scalar spatial framework. Four public markets are compared: Smithfield Market, Quarry Bay Market, Aberdeen Market and Electric Road Market. They were selected because of the different renewal conditions and vacancy levels. The analysis reads each case through three connected levels: macro-level policy and supply conditions, meso-level pedestrian accessibility, and micro-level internal spatial use.

The research combines policy review, Space Syntax, DepthmapX analysis, field observation and Mask2Former semantic segmentation. Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) is further applied to organise the relationships between different risk factors and develop a cross-scale understanding of market decline.

Based on the findings, four spatial design strategies are proposed: improving pedestrian connections, opening market edges, introducing flexible stall boundaries, and providing shared sorting areas for delivery and storage. These strategies are applied to the Kwu Tung North New Public Market to explore their potential application in future market planning.