HONG KONG — On a recent morning, Agnes Chow, 17, and another teenage activist rode a van through the streets of Hong Kong, urging people through a loudspeaker to vote in an informal referendum for a more democratic way to pick the city’s top leader. But the vote, which has been condemned as illegal by the Chinese government, was about much more than the city’s leadership, she said.

“I think the younger generation feels the future of Hong Kong falls on its shoulders,” said Ms. Chow, who was only 6 months old when Britain returned Hong Kong to China. “The inequality of the society is one of the reasons people have come out to vote. The social issues are tied in because without a democratic system, there is no pressure on the government to change.”

A surge of discontent is washing over this harbor city of 7.2 million people, which has long taken pride in its status as an enclave of free enterprise, free speech and independent courts abutting the Chinese mainland. The immediate conflict is about how to elect Hong Kong’s leader, the chief executive. But the underlying resentment voiced by many here is that the city’s political-business machine is rigged against them.

In interviews, a cross section of society — from lawyers, bankers and former senior public servants to high school students — said that since Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, an elite beholden to the Chinese Communist Party has increasingly dominated the economy and opportunity, as well as politics.