Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360

People living in ageing buildings: Their quality of life and

sense of belonging
Sik Hung Ng
a,
, Ping Kwong Kam
a
, Raymond W.M. Pong
b
a
Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong
b
Centre for Rural & Northern Health Research, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada P3E 2C6
Abstract
The rst objective of this study is to develop measures of housing-related environmental factors (quality of dwelling, neighbours and
community) and place belonging. Another objective is to test the impacts of housing-related environmental factors on quality of life
(QoL) and place belonging. Interview data were collected from 576 residents in six districts that had been designated for demolition as
part of a major urban renewal programme in Hong Kong. The ndings showed that the QoL measures (life satisfaction, family life and
health) were related weakly (or not at all) to various demographic and socio-economic factors. By contrast, the environmental factors,
when added to the regression equations, signicantly raised the variance explained. For place belonging, the environmental factors
closest to the home of the residents (i.e. quality of dwelling and neighbours) exerted a greater inuence than the more distal factor (i.e. the
wider community). The overall ndings demonstrated the relevance of housing to two issuesQoL and place belongingthat are
important topics in environmental social psychology relating to urban renewal.
r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Ageing building; Quality of life; Place belonging
1. Introduction
Human survival depends critically on access to a safe
shelter. Caves, tents, boats, mud huts, and modern
skyscrapers are some of the main forms of dwelling used
or invented by humans. Increasingly, with urbanization
more and more people are housed in high-density
residential buildings that not only shape their immediate
living environment, but also their neighbourhood and the
wider community. Residential buildings therefore impact
on residents quality of life (QoL) through their physical
conditions as well as by the neighbours that they have
attracted and the wider community wherein they are
situated. Through these layered impacts of dwelling,
neighbours and community, housing may also affect
residents sense of belonging or attachment to the place.
The twin impact of housing on QoL and place belonging
are explored in the present study carried out in one of the
worlds most densely populated cities, namely, Hong
Kong.
For reasons that will be made clear below, the focus of
the study is on people living in old buildings that have been
designated ofcially for demolition in a large-scale urban
renewal programme. We were able to interview them
before their relocation to other parts of the city, thus
capturing on record the QoL and sense of belonging of a
section of the population caught up in the throes of urban
renewal. We feel that research that situates the study of
QoL and belongingness in the context of housing would be
timely for Hong Kong and, just as important, useful for the
advancement of environmental social psychology.
1.1. Urban renewal
As the economy and population of Hong Kong grew,
most notably since the end of World War II, so did the
growth in the numbers of new buildings (Leung & Yiu,
2004). Except for houses built for the very rich, the vast
majority of buildings are multi-storeyed and concentrated
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doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2005.08.005

Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 2788 8989.

E-mail address: sikhung.ng@cityu.edu.hk (S.H. Ng).
in urban areas. By now, there are over 8500 multi-storeyed
buildings of 30 years of vintage or older, and the number is
projected to increase by 50% in the next decade. For
residential buildings that are not occupied by owners but
rented out for prot, they are not well looked after by
tenants. On top of poor building maintenance resulting
from disinterested tenant neglect, another major reason for
poor building maintenance is due to multiple ownership of
the same building. Multiple ownership complicates collec-
tive efforts of building maintenance, not all others are
willing to bear the nancial burden of building main-
tenance, as some would prefer to be free-riders, and
many owners have migrated overseas anyway. These local
factors have accelerated the aging of the vast stock of old
buildings falling prematurely into dilapidated conditions,
in stark contrast to other countries where homes of the
same old age as those in Hong Kong are still in sound
conditions, well maintained, and a pleasant part of the
environment.
The scale and urgency of the problem has prompted a
series of actions by the Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region (SAR) Government. In his 1999 Policy Address,
the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR Government
outlined a new urban renewal strategy aimed at improving
the QoL for people housed in dilapidated buildings in old
and run-down areas. In 2001 the Urban Renewal
Authority (URA) was established, replacing the Land
Development Corporation, and soon after followed by the
development of the Urban Renewal Strategy (URS). In its
assessment, the URS identied over 200 derelict project
sites on the Hong Kong Island, in the Kowloon Peninsula,
and Tsuen Wan in the New Territories for urban renewal
over a period of 20 years, affecting 2000 buildings that were
considered to be dilapidated and unsound. The nancial
cost for urban renewal was estimated to be more than
US$32,000 million.
Other than the sheer scale and urgency of the housing
problem, the URS also highlighted a people-rst policy
of urban renewal based on four principles: owners will
receive fair compensation, all displaced tenants will be
rehoused, adverse impact will be minimized, and the
community must benet through upgraded facilities (see
Kam, Ng, & Ho, 2004, for an account of the new policy
and its historical signicance). Interestingly, QoL has been
invoked as an overarching aim of the people-rst policy.
Beyond urban renewal, for housing policy generally the
Hong Kong SAR Government has been keen to increase
peoples sense of belonging to Hong Kong in order to
enhance social integration and to guard against outward
migration en masse (La Grange & Ming, 2001). A repeat of
the exodus from Hong Kong following the 1989 Tienan-
men crackdown would be extremely costly politically to
both Hong Kong and mainland China. Both types of
concernQoL and place belongingare amenable to
psychological investigation and provide an opportunity
for psychology to address QoL and social belonging in a
policy-relevant way.
1.2. Quality of life
QoL has generated numerous studies not only in
medicine/nursing (e.g. Draper, 1997) and the social sciences
(e.g. Campbell, Converse, & Rodgers, 1976; Orley &
Kuyken, 1994; Schuessler & Fisher, 1985), but increasingly
in gerontology (e.g. Abeles, Gift, & Ory, 1994; Birren,
Lubben, Rowe, & Deutchman, 1991; Lawton, 1996;
Nordenfelt, 1994). In psychology, happiness and subjective
well-being research is most closely related to QoL, each
with its own considerable literature (e.g. Argyle, 2001;
Kahneman, Diener, & Schwarz, 1999). With respect to
housing and the impact of relocation, a QoL-approach can
be found in the early works of Porteous (1977) and Chow
(1988) carried out in Boston and Hong Kong, respectively.
Issues arising therein and in later works (e.g. Yuan,
Yuen, & Low, 1999) include theoretical, measurement
and policy issues. Let us take up the measurement of QoL
rst.
The WHOQOL Group (1998) has developed a measure
of QoL covering 24 facets of QoL in up to six life domains.
A similar and equally encompassing measure has been
produced by Cummins (1999). A shorter measure that
focuses on life satisfaction is an older scale developed by
Neugarten, Havighurst, and Tobin (1961). This index is
easy to administer to people of varying ages, including
older people (James & Davies, 1986), and has the further
advantage of providing a summary index of the subjective
experience of QoL that is just as important as, if not more
so than, any objective index of QoL (Gibson, 1998).
Further, as Leitmann (1999) has argued, the most useful
QoL measures should reect local needs and conditions
and not strive to be comprehensive or universal. For these
reasons, in the present study, QoL measures are of three
kinds to encompass both general and local conditions: (1) a
domain-independent, generalized measure based on life
satisfaction, (2) a health-related measure based on func-
tioning abilities and sleep, and (3) a quality-of-family life
measure to reect the great cultural importance Chinese
tend to place on families. Note that although sleep may be
taken for granted in residential areas that are quiet and
spacious, it can be problematic in overcrowded apartments
and noisy environments such as those prevailing in urban
renewal districts. For this reason, it would be relevant to
include it in the study.
From a theoretical perspective, the three layers of
housing-related factors already noted above may provide
a systematic way of understanding QoL among residents
who are living under the shadow of urban renewal: (1) the
physical condition of the dwelling as perceived by residents,
(2) neighbours, and (3) the wider community. The
importance of dwellings should be obvious, but they alone
only scratch the surface of QoL. In an early study of
housing squatters in Hong Kong, Hopkins (1971) found
that resettlement alone did not necessarily improve the
quality of living compared to squatters who remained un-
resettled. Other factors beyond the immediate residential
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S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 348
environment have to be taken into account, such as those
outlined above. The three layers of housing-related factors
are not comprehensive, but overlap substantially with the
list of potential factors identied by Grayson and Young
(1994) in their review of QoL in cities. Conceptually they
represent environmental factors, some more proximal to
residents home than others, that could have an impact on
residents QoL and sense of belonging.
As the housing-related factors do not exist in a social
vacuum, they may be linked with income, property
ownership status (owner-occupiers versus tenants, see
below), gender and age. For example, although the
residents are all living in buildings that have been declared
derelict by the URA, the actual physical conditions and
size of the dwelling vary with income and ownership status.
Further, interaction with neighbours and access to com-
munity facilities may also vary with income and ownership
status, as well as with gender and age. Thus it would be
necessary to include these socio-economic (income and
ownership status) and demographic (gender and age)
factors in order to assess more rigorously the independent
impact of the housing-related factors.
1.3. Place belonging
Place belonging, dened here as a sense of belonging to a
particular place as if it were ones own home, is territory-
based and can be distinguished from belonging to a social
group based on ethnicity, gender religion, and so forth.
Notwithstanding this difference in referential meaning,
place belonging is similar to group belonging in terms of
the comfort and sense of security they both bring
(McAndrew, 1993). The similarity does not stop here. In
social psychology research, group belonging is not simply a
fundamental element in the hierarchy of human needs (e.g.
Maslow, 1970), but also a powerful source of social identity
and pride that contribute greatly to the sense of self and
self-denitions (e.g. Brewer & Hewstone, 2004). Knowl-
edge of ones group membership answers the Who am I?
question by answering the question of Which groups am I
a member of? Similarly, environment psychology as well
as urban and rural studies have shown that place belonging
is a source of identity (e.g. Forrest & Kearns, 2001;
Korpela, 1989; Pretty, Chipuer, & Bramston, 2003). A
place to call home, as Cuba and Hummon (1993, p. 111)
have put it aptly, is an important source of identity in the
social construction of selfhoodit answers the abstract
Who am I? question by answering the more concrete
question of Where is the place I call home?
Thus, as Low and Altman (1992) have pointed out, the
study of place belonging is worthwhile for the light it sheds
on residents identity and sense of selfhood arising from
their knowledge of and emotional attachment to a place.
Belonging or attachment to a place, just as in the case of
belonging or attachment to a social group, is a complex
concept. The place may, for example, refer to the
ancestral home (which may no longer exist), the place of
birth, the current place of residence (which may be
different from ones birthplace), and so forth. It may
also refer to a hierarchy of concentric spaces expand-
ing from the home block to the immediate neighbourhood,
the surrounding community or district, the city, and
beyond (e.g. Golledge & Stimson, 1997). Of this hierarchy
of spaces, neighbourhood and community have attracted
considerable attention from researchers (e.g. Cook,
1988; Galster, 2001; Hummon, 1992; Rivlin, 1987).
By contrast, attachment to the city has been less well
attended to.
In the present study, an attempt will be made to nd out
the extent of housing impact on belonging to the city. As in
the QoL part of the study, the general research question
that is of special interest to place belonging is the relative
impact of the three layers of housing-related variables
already referred to above. But in addition, by pitching the
study of place belonging to the city, it has political
implications that make it particularly relevant to the
current situation in Hong Kong. In the colonial past of
Hong Kong, only a limited sense of community existed in
the territory (Lau, 1985). Since the return of the territorys
sovereignty to China, one of the most important political
concerns of the government is how to enlarge and deepen
belongingness to Hong Kong in order to enhance societal
integration (Lau, 2002). Towards this end, the present
government has made use of housing as a policy tool, on
the assumption that making ownership of property more
widely accessible to citizens will enhance the sense of
belongingness in society and hopefully also increase
societal integration. The impact of property ownership
on belonging, however, is tenuous (La Grange & Ming,
2001) and in need of further testing. More generally, as
pointed out by Verberg (2000), the validity of such a
political incorporation thesis is uncertain and in need of
scrutiny. The present study will test for the impact
of property ownership and compare it with the impact of
the other variables. It should be noted that although
there are other dimensions of place belonging such as
attachment to the neighbourhood, it is the sense of
belonging to Hong Kong itself that is of interest here
because of its current political relevance and implications
for housing policy.
To summarize, the objectives of the present study are:
To develop multiple measures of housing-related
environmental factors (quality of dwelling, neighbours
and community) and a single measure of place
belonging.
To test the impacts of housing-related environmental
factors on QoL and place belonging.
Socio-economic and demographic variables will be
included in the statistical analyses in order to provide a
more rigorous assessment of the independent impacts of
the housing-related environmental factors on QoL and
place belonging.
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2. Method
2.1. Procedure
A survey was carried out in 20022003 of 576 residents in
the rst six districts that had been designated by the Urban
Renewal Authority for demolition on the bases of
structurally unsound conditions, re or health risks,
ineffectiveness of repair, and so forth. A sample of these
buildings can be found in Fig. 1.
The total number of households was estimated by URA
to be 1800. As many households had already moved away
prior to the present survey, the number of remaining
households for the survey was reduced. Based on our own
site visits, the estimated number of remaining households
was about 1200. All household units still living in the
districts at the time of the survey were visited with the aim
of interviewing either an older (5694 years), a middle-aged
(3055 years) or a younger (1229 years) household
member. Households that were missed on the rst call
were left with a letter inviting them to take part in the
study, and subsequently revisited at least once on a
different day and different time so to maximize the
response rate. A total of 576 households participated in
the survey, from which either an older, a middle-aged or a
younger members was interviewed. The effective response
rate, excluding missed calls, was 82%. (The overall
response rate including missed calls was approximately
48%.) As the buildings were in dilapidated conditions, and
many of the visits had to be conducted in the evening,
interviewers carried out their tasks in pairs to ensure
psychological and physical safety. Other than a few
incidents of barking dogs, no danger or physical harm
was encountered.
2.2. Participants
Geographical distribution: A total of 576 residents from
as many households completed the interview. They were
drawn from six districts in Tai Kok Tsui (145), Sham Shui
Po (99) Mongkok (33), Wanchai (42), Sai Ying Pun (169),
and Sheung Wan (88). The relatively small numbers of
participants in Mongkok and Wanchai were due to the
small number of affected buildings and the early relocation
of residents before the present study began. The districts
were distributed equally on the Hong Kong Island and
Kowloon Peninsula.
Demographic and socio-economic background: The sam-
ple consisted of more males (56%) than females, and more
middle-aged (44%) than older (38%) or younger (18%)
residents. Age means (S.D.) of the three age groups were
44.7 (6.9), 69.5 (9.1), and 21.6 (5.9), respectively. Under
half (46%) of the sample had received no secondary school
education, and only 7% possessed post-secondary quali-
cations. Their monthly median household income was
around US$1650. As to be expected, the sample was below
the general population in terms of both educational
attainment and household income. Specically, according
to the 2001 census statistics, only 29% of the general
population received no secondary education and as many
as 16% possessed post-secondary qualications. The
monthly median household income of the general popula-
tion was US$2340.
Housing situation: About a third of the sample was made
up of owners (33%), and the remainder were tenants.
Slightly less than half of the sample (47%) were sole
occupiers of the at or apartment, whereas others shared
the dwelling with one or more other households. Overall
the average household size was 3.15 persons and the
average size of the dwelling per household was 333 sq ft.
They had been living in their present building for an
average of 15 years, and in the same district for 22 years.
Almost half of the sample (49%) reported three or more
dilapidated conditions in their building from a list of six,
conrming the poor physical condition of the buildings.
With respect to their future housing expectations, the most
wanted improvements in descending order were more space
(67% of residents wanted this), better ventilation, better
hygiene, and better natural lighting (55%). Overall,
community participation (in community centres, churches,
clan and kin associations, etc.) was low. Fewer than a third
(30%) of the sample had participated in any of the
community associations or clubs, and these for not more
than once a month.
2.3. Measures
This study is part of a larger project that used an
extensive interview schedule for collecting data to address
the present research questions as well as others. Only the
former will be analysed herein for present purposes. Prior
to the main study, informal interviews were conducted with
over 20 residents either individually or in small groups to
generate items for the environmental factors. The nal
selection of items was based on face validity and, where
possible, congruence with relevant studies.
2.3.1. Background variables
Demographic and socio-economic background: These
include age, gender, marital status, length of residence in
Hong Kong, employment status, education level and
household income.
Current housing situation: Residents were asked to
indicate their property ownership status (owners or
tenants), household size, length of residence in the dwell-
ing, and dilapidated conditions of the building.
2.3.2. Environmental variables
Quality of dwelling: Residents were asked to indicate
their level of satisfaction with nine specic aspects of their
dwelling (size of oor area, ventilation, hygienic condi-
tions, natural lighting, sleeping area, dinning and reading
areas, toilet and kitchen facilities). The nine items over-
lapped considerably with the dwelling conditions identied
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S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 350
in a Hong Kong study carried out by Phillips, Siu, Yeh,
and Cheng (2005). In addition to the nine items, residents
also indicated their level of satisfaction with their dwelling
overall. The response format comprised ve levels of
satisfaction (1 very unsatised, 5 very satised).
Quality of neighbours: Neighbourhood and the quality of
neighbours are complex concepts (Galster, 2001). For
present purposes, as indicated by interviews with local
residents and overseas research (e.g. Fischer, 1982), the
social-interactive characteristics of neighbours were chosen
to anchor the measure of the quality of neighbours,
comprising the frequency of social interaction, perceived
helpfulness, and satisfaction with the relationship with
neighbours. Accordingly, residents were asked to rate their
frequency of social interaction with neighbours (0 none,
5 a lot), their perceived helpfulness of neighbours
(0 none, 5 a lot), and their satisfaction with their
relationships with neighbours (1 very unsatised,
5 very satised). They also indicated their overall
satisfaction with their neighbours (1 very unsatised,
5 very satised). Note that the rst two items, because of
their very nature, allowed none as the answer and this was
scored as zero, although in actual fact very few respondents
used this category of response. The special provision of
zero was not needed for the last two items.
Quality of the wider community: Community quality was
measured by, rst, ve items concerning community
facilities that were helpful to but non-essential for living
(i.e. public parks, park facilities, community centre
services, availability of public libraries and recreational
facilities, standard of library and recreational facilities);
and second, three items measuring community facilities of
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Fig. 1. Exterior and interior conditions of some old buildings.
S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 351
a more essential nature (i.e. public transport, health clinics
and shopping). The distinction between essential and non-
essential facilities was based on a consideration of the fact
that most of the residents living in run-down districts
designated for urban renewal were not car owners and had
to rely on public transport for visitation and for commut-
ing to work and to school. By the same token, residents
placed a high premium on ready and convenient access to
health clinics and to shopping facilities for food and other
necessities. For these reasons, public transport, health
clinics and shopping were deemed to be more essential that
other facilities such as public parks in the local context,
although the latter remained important. In the study,
residents indicated their levels of satisfaction with each of
the eight items and with their community overall (1 very
unsatised, 5 very satised).
2.3.3. Measures of QoL
Life satisfaction: This was measured by four items
adapted from the Life Satisfaction Index Form A
(Neugarten et al., 1961) covering happiness, recent
years were the best time of your life, interesting as well as
meaningful life and feeling depressed. Residents were
asked to indicate their levels of agreement or disagreement
with each item on a 4-point scale (1 agree strongly,
4 disagree strongly). For example, I am happy as ever.
Responses to the rst three, positively worded, items were
reverse coded so that across all four items higher scores
indicated higher life satisfaction.
Quality of family life: Family life was measured by three
items covering quality time for family interaction, satisfac-
tion with family life, and family support on a 5-point scale
(1 low, 5 high).
Health: Four items on work ability, learning ability,
ability to deal with daily situations, and quality of
sleep were constructed to measure health on a 5-point
scale (1 low, 5 high).
2.3.4. Place belonging
Place belonging: Place belonging was measured by three
items on the extent to which Hong Kong was considered
home, the degree of belongingness to Hong Kong, and the
strength of self-identication and pride as a Hong Konger.
The content of these items overlapped with measures of
group identication (Brown, Condor, Mathews, Wade, &
Williams, 1986). For the rst item, respondents indicated
their answers on a 5-point scale (1 not at all, 5 a lot).
For the last two items, a marking scale of 100 points was
provided for respondents to express their strengths
of belongingness and self-identication. For example,
Out of a maximum of 100 points, how many points
would you give to your sense of belonging to Hong Kong.
For the purpose analyzing the three items jointly, the 5-
point scale used in the rst item was later rescaled to a 100-
point scale, that is, 1 was rescaled to 0, 225, 350, 475,
and 5100.
3. Results
3.1. Overview
As noted above, multi-item scales were developed to
measure housing-related environmental factors, QoL, and
place belonging. For each scale, an exploratory factor
analysis was carried out to identify the number of
components (dimensions) that made up the scale, followed
by reliability analysis to select the smallest number of items
that would yield the highest Chronbachs alpha. The results
showed that the multi-item scales were all unidimensional,
with the exception of the health scale. As will be reported
below, the latter was decomposed into a functioning
abilities and a sleep scale.
3.2. Housing-related environmental factors
Quality of dwelling: As noted earlier under Method,
residents were asked to indicate their level of satisfaction
with nine aspects of their dwelling. Exploratory factor
analysis extracted two components with eigenvalues great-
er than 1. Together, they accounted for 71% of the
variance. Inspection of the scree plot showed a sharp
attening after the rst component, which alone explained
60% of the variance. Thus a one-component solution was
adopted. Reliability test of the nine items resulted in a
Chronbachs alpha of .92. This a could not be raised by
deleting any item. Accordingly, a 9-item scale was adopted
for measuring the quality of dwelling (Dwe9).
Quality of neighbours: Following the procedure above, a
3-item scale with an a of .80 was developed for measuring
the quality of neighbours (Neig3).
Quality of the wider community: The 5-item scale
measuring community facilities that were helpful to but
non-essential for living had an a of .78. This will be referred
to as ComN5. The 3-item scale (ComE3) measuring
community facilities of a more essential nature also had
an a of .78.
Validating the Dwe9, Neig3, ComN5 and ComE3 scales:
As the four housing-related environmental scales devel-
oped herein were the hypothesized key predictors of QoL
and place belonging, it was deemed necessary to establish
their validity. For this purpose, as noted under Method,
residents were asked to indicate their overall satisfaction
with their dwellings, neighbours, and the community, each
on a single-item question. Table 1 shows the four
correlations (bold typed) between the multi-item scales
and their corresponding one-item overall measure. They
were all signicant, and higher than any other correlations
in the inter-correlation matrix. Thus, there was some
evidence for both convergent and discriminant validities of
the scales.
Note that the three items for overall satisfaction were
used for validating the housing-related environmental
measures, rather than for increasing their reliabilities. Even
if the overall items were included in their respective
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S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 352
measures, the as were increased by no more than .05. As
the overall satisfaction with the community was used to
validate two separate measures of community satisfaction,
its inclusion in both measures would cause redundancy
and render the two measures less distinct. For these
reasons, the overall satisfaction items were not included
in the measures.
3.3. Measures of QoL
Life satisfaction (4 items, a .71): Residents responses
to life satisfaction items were subjected to exploratory
factor analysis. One component with an eigenvalue of
greater than 1 was extracted that accounted for 54% of the
variance. Reliability test showed that all four items should
be retained to form the life satisfaction scale (LS) with an
a .71.
Quality of family life (3 items, a .68): Exploratory
factor analysis of responses to the three items extracted one
factor with an eigenvalue of greater than 1. Reliability test
showed that all three items should be retained with an
a .68.
Health (functioning abilities, 3 items, a .74; sleep, 1
item): Exploratory factor analysis of the four health items
extracted one signicant factor. However, reliability
analysis showed that the a could be raised from .67 to
.74 by taking the sleep item out. Hence, health was
represented by an 1-item scale measuring the quality of
sleep and by a 3-item scale measuring functioning abilities
(a .74).
Inter-correlations among QoL measures: Life satisfaction,
quality of family life, sleep, and functioning abilities were
correlated moderately with each other in the positive
direction. The six correlation coefcients ranged from .21
(between life satisfaction and functioning abilities) to .35
(between life satisfaction and sleep), with a mean of .28,
suggesting that the four measures were taping into related
but fairly distinct aspects of the QoL.
3.4. Place belonging (3 items, a .70)
Exploratory factor analysis extracted one factor and
reliability test showed an a .70 for the three-item scale.
3.5. Summary of descriptive statistics of the measures
Table 2 summarizes the means and standard deviations
of the measures, along with their minimum and maximum
scale points.
3.6. Impact of housing-related environmental factors on
QoL
Overview of regression analyses: Each measure of QoL
was regressed on the four environmental predictors as well
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Table 1
Inter-correlations (Pearson) and reliabilities of scales
Satneig1 Comsat1 Dwe9 Neig3 comN5 comE3
Dwesat1 .216* .328* .717* .072 .208* .229*
satneig1 .285* .206* .471* .132* .206*
comsat1 .289* .128* .435* .396*
dwe9 .062 .219* .185*
Neig3 .080 .043
comN5 .265*
Reliability .92 .80 .78 .78
*po.01 (2-tailed).
Dwesat1: overall satisfaction with dwelling (1-item).
Satneig1: overall satisfaction with neighbours (1-item).
Comsat1: overall satisfaction with community (1-item).
Dwe9: satisfaction with various aspects of dwelling (9-item).
Neig3: satisfaction with various aspects of neighbours (3-item).
ComN5: satisfaction with non-essential community facilities (5-item).
ComE3: satisfaction with essential community facilities (3-item).
Table 2
Means and standard deviations of measures
Mean S.D.
Dwesat1 3.0 1.2
Satneig1 3.7 .9
Comsat1 3.8 .9
Dwe9 3.1 1.0
Neig3
a
3.8 1.3
comN5 3.4 .9
comE3 4.4 .7
Life satisfaction
b
2.6 .6
Sleep 3.4 1.2
Functioning ability 3.4 .9
Family life 3.6 .9
Belonging
c
70.7 19.7
Scale range of all other measures 1 (low)5 (high).
a
Scale range 1 (low quality of neighbours)6 (high quality of
neighbours).
b
Scale range 1 (low satisfaction)4 (high satisfaction).
c
Scale range 0 (weak sense of belonging to Hong Kong)100 (strong
sense of belonging to Hong Kong).
S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 353
as the economic and demographic variable of property
ownership status, household income, gender and age. Prior
to this, in order to compare the impacts of the environ-
mental predictors with that of the economic/demographic
variables, measures in the latter category were entered rst
as a block in the regression analysis. Ownership status and
gender were coded as dummy variables with owners 0,
non-owners 1, males 0, and females 1.
In order to provide a fuller context for evaluating the
regression analyses, we rst produced descriptive correla-
tions between the four economic/demographic variables
and the four environmental variables, as well as inter-
correlations among the environmental variables after
controlling for the economic/demographic variables. The
16 correlations (Spearmans rho) between the economic/
demographic variables and the environmental variables
were generally low (.32 to .25, absolute mean .10), as
were the six partial inter-correlations of the environmental
variables after controlling for the economic/demographic
variables (.01.25, mean .12). The generally low correla-
tions suggested no violation of the assumption of multi-
collinearity, and this was conrmed to be the case in all of
the regression analyses. Specically, in all four sets of
regression analyses to be reported below, the VIF statistics
were less than 1.3, and the Tolerance statistics were higher
than .8, which were safely remote from threshold values
that would signal problems of high multicollinearity (e.g.
Fox, 1997). Further regression diagnostics were conducted
to produce regression standardized residuals, histograms of
residuals, and partial regression plots. Generally, the
results indicated no problems of outliers, non-normality
or non-linearity. The only cause for concern was a small
skewness in the sleep measure of QoL. However, since
regression is robust in the face of some deviation from the
assumption of normally distributed residual error, no
correction was deemed necessary. In the results to be
reported below, the level of statistical signicance was set
at po:05.
Impact on life satisfaction: Property ownership status,
household income, gender and age were entered rst as a
block in the regression analysis. As shown in Table 3, these
four variables accounted for 2.1% of the variance (R
2
) and
two of them (income and age) were signicant at the po:05
level. Higher income and older age were predictive of
higher life satisfaction. When the four environmental
predictors were entered in the second block, R
2
was raised
signicantly to 12.5% with all four predictors showing a
signicant beta coefcient. Note that age was no longer
signicant, suggesting that its impact on life satisfaction
was mediated through one or more of the environmental
predictors. Income remained to be signicant. Compared
to income, all environmental predictors except comN5
(non-essential community facilities) contributed more to
life satisfaction and in the predicted, positive direction.
Note that as all four environmental predictors were entered
in the regression analysis in block 2, they each contributed
unique variance. Further, their impacts were generally
independent of each other because of their low inter-
correlations shown in Table 1. Finally, as the environ-
mental predictors were correlated lowly with income (all
four correlations were smaller than .11), their impacts were
also largely independent of that of income.
Impact on health (sleep): The two-block regression
analysis was repeated for sleep, measured by a single item
asking residents to indicate their satisfaction with their
sleep. The results were similar to that of life satisfaction
except that neighbours and non-essential community
facilities were not signicant predictors of sleep (see
summary of this and other results in Table 4).
Impact on health (functioning abilities): Regression
analysis showed, rst, that ownership status, income,
gender and age accounted for 2.4% of the variance with
income and ownership status as the only signicant
predictors. When the four environmental predictors were
entered in the second block, R
2
was raised signicantly to
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 3
Regression analysis of life satisfaction
Block b t pp
1 R
2
:021, F4; 532 2:85, po:05
Ownership status .061 1.383 ns
Income .117 2.549 .011
Gender .034 .783 ns
Age group .093 2.018 .044
2
R
2
:125, F8; 508 9:07, po:0001
Ownership status .005 .115 ns
Income .128 2.878 .004
Gender .025 .595 ns
Age group .017 .373 ns
DWE9 .163 3.563 .000
NEIG3 .160 3.828 .000
COMN5 .109 2.474 .014
COME3 .146 3.317 .001
Table 4
Summary of regression analyses showing signicant standardized beta and
R
2
Measures of QoL
LS Sleep Functioning abilities Family life
Predictors
Ownership status .16
Income .13 .11 .11 .19
Gender
Age
Dwe9 .16 .24
Neig3 .16 .09 .15
comN5 .11 .12
comE3 .15 .14 .15 .11
R
2
.13 .12 .06 .13
Note: LS life satisfaction. po:05.
S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 354
6.3% with two of the four predictors showing a signicant
beta coefcient in addition to household income (owner-
ship status was no longer signicant). All three signicant
predictors were approximately equal in impact, as mea-
sured by their standardized betas.
Impact on quality of family life: Block one of the
regression analysis showed that ownership status and
income were signicant predictors. When the four environ-
mental factors were entered in the second block, R
2
was
raised signicantly from 7.2% to 12.9% with three of the
four measures showing a signicant beta coefcient in
addition to ownership status and income (see Table 4).
Family life was better for owners and increased with
income and with the quality of neighbourhood and
community.
3.7. Impact of housing-related environmental factors on
place belonging
Block 1 of the regression analysis showed that property
ownership status and age, but not gender or income, were
signicant predictors of belonging. When the four envir-
onmental predictors were entered in the second block, R
2
was raised from 7.3% to 11.3% with two of the four
predictors showing a signicant beta coefcient, namely,
quality of dwelling and neighbours. As shown in Table 5,
better dwelling and neighbours were associated with
stronger belonging, as was older age. Ownership status
was no longer a signicant predictor.
Further analyses were carried out to see if the age effect
was confounded by length of residence in Hong Kong. As
may be expected, age was positively correlated with
residence length, r :416, df 574, po:001. When resi-
dential length was added to the regression analysis (second
block), age remained signicant and had a higher beta
(.157) than any of the other three signicant predictors
(residence length, beta .130; dwelling, beta .152;
neighbours, beta .103). Thus, age continued to contri-
bute unique variance in the presence of residence
length, although its effect was not entirely independent
of residence length because of their moderate inter-
correlation.
4. Discussion
To assess the QoL of residents living in ageing buildings
that had been targeted for urban renewal, and to compare
the impacts of different predictors on QoL, the present
study developed measures of QoL and of housing-related
environmental predictors. Using these tools, the present
study has uncovered a number of ndings worthy of note,
although given the small sample and generally low values
of R
2
and beta, they are suggestive only. The discussion
below is therefore hypothetical rather than deterministic,
and serves to illustrate the further need for research. In so
doing, we shall attempt to proffer a number of concepts
and analyses.
The study found, rst, that of the QoL measures, all four
were affected by household income, one (family life) by
ownership status, and none by gender or age. The
economic basis of QoL was clearly established, a nding
consistent with the literature showing that people with
higher socio-economic status have better health status
that in turn leads to higher QoL. Yet, the economic
and demographic predictors, even when combined, ac-
counted for less than 8% of the variance of any one of the
QoL measures. The four environmental predictors, when
added to the regression equations, raised the variance
accounted for (R
2
) signicantly. Across all four QoL
measures, predictors that proved to be signicant were
mainly environmental variables rather than economic/
demographic variables. Overall, then, the impacts of
environmental predictors on QoL were stronger relative
to economic/demographic variables. Of these environmen-
tal predictors, essential community facilities (shopping,
transport, medical clinics) exerted the most pervasive
impactit affected all four QoL measuresfollowed
by neighbours (affecting three measures) and then by
the physical conditions of dwellings and non-
essential community facilities (each affecting two QoL
measures).
Life satisfaction, the most generic of the four measures
of the QoL, was affected by income and by all of the
environmental predictors. The latter predictors, when
added to the regression equation, raised the R
2
from
1.8% to 13%. This substantial increase in R
2
indicates that
urban renewal may have considerable positive impact on
life satisfaction by improving the quality of dwellings,
neighbours and the community of relocated residents. A
follow-up study of the residents would provide the
necessary data for assessing the actual impact resulting
from relocation. For now, we may proffer the following
scenario.
Given the derelict condition of residents present dwell-
ings, the relocation of residents to newer and better
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 5
Regression analysis of belonging
Block Beta t pp
1 R
2
:073, F4; 531 10:41, po:0001
Ownership status .111 2.601 .010
Income .036 .813 .416
Gender .055 1.288 .148
Age .245 5.497 .000
2
R
2
:113, F8; 507 8:077, po:0001
Ownership status .059 1.323 ns
Income .045 1.014 ns
Gender .041 .950 ns
Age .203 4.446 .000
Dwe9 .165 3.597 .000
Neig3 .096 2.271 .024
comN5 .001 .026 ns
comE3 .056 1.268 ns
S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 355
dwellings is likely to have an immediate positive impact on
life satisfaction. Thereafter, further impact would depend
on other aspects of housing. First, if the community to
which residents are relocated can provide better facilities
than those afforded by their current community, then
further positive impact may be obtained. But there is no
guarantee that facilities would be better in the new than in
the old community. Even if the facilities are better in the
new community, residents need time to get used to and to
actually make use of them as they adapt to the new
environment. Second, with respect to neighbours, their
impact on QoL depends even more strongly on residents
ability to develop a new network of trusted and helpful
neighbours to replace the old one. Time and meaningful
social interactions are required for this form of social
capital to evolve (e.g. Purdue, 2001; Hardin, 2002). This
analysis points to potential difculties, especially for the
elderly (Moorer & Suurmeijer, 2001), due to the lengthy
process of adaptation to the new environment following
dislocation from a familiar environment where residents
have been living for many years.
The scenario above for life satisfaction points to the
following psychological cost-benet of QoL during the
process of urban renewal. On the one hand, urban renewal
brings immediate positive impact due to the improved
physical quality of dwellings. On the other hand, impacts
due to neighbours and community are less certain and,
even if they are positive in the longer run, would require
considerable adaptation on the part of the residents. Such
adaptation may be difcult because an unfamiliar high-
density urban environment, to which the residents will
most likely move into from their current familiar low-
density environment, is not conducive to openness or
friendliness that may otherwise facilitate the integration of
new residents into the community (e.g. Milgram, 1977).
This argument, by pitting the positive and immediate
impact of improved dwellings against the remote and less
certain impact of neighbours and community, leads us to
develop a quantiable index of the psychological cost-
benet of QoL based on the standardized beta coef-
cients. If the standardized beta coefcient of dwelling
exceeds that of neighbours and community, then the net
cost-benet is favourable to QoL. Otherwise, the net cost-
benet is unfavourable. For life satisfaction, as can be
calculated from Table 4, the net cost-benet is negative (.17
.16 .12 .14 .25).
Applying the analysis of the psychological cost-benet
to other measures of QoL, and conning the comparison
to predictors that are signicant (see Table 4), it can be
shown that the net cost-benet is favorable for sleep but
unfavorable for the remaining two measures. Residents can
expect to sleep better as the positive impact of improved
dwellings outweigh whatever negative impact may incur in
neighbours and community facilities. On the other hand,
residents can expect challenges ahead with regard to the
other measures of QoL pertaining to functioning abilities
and especially family life.
The psychological cost-benet analysis points to an
oversight in the people-rst policy of urban renewal. As
noted in Section 1.1 of this paper, one of the four people-
rst principles is to ensure that the community must
benet through upgraded facilities after urban renewal.
The community here refers to the community located in
and around the urban renewal district. That is, after
demolishing the dilapidated buildings and putting up new
ones in their place, facilities therein must also be upgraded.
Residents who benet from the upgraded facilities would
be those who remain in the community or move in as
newcomers, but not those who have been relocated
elsewhere. For the latter, there is no guarantee from the
existing people-rst policy that the community to which
they have been relocated would have upgraded facilities.
To summarize this part of the discussion, as the Asian
Development Bank (1995) has pointed out, the human cost
of involuntary resettlement is considerable, and should be
taken into account in the formulation of resettlement
policy as well as the assessment of its impact. The QoL
approach developed in the present study provides a useful
framework for addressing the human dimension of
resettlement in general, and of urban renewal in particular.
The nuanced analysis of the layered impacts of the four
environmental predictors has revealed an urban renewal
dilemma of varying severity across the QoL measures.
Immediate improvement can be expected in sleep but not in
the other measures. Most at risk would be family life,
where the net psychological cost-benet index is the most
negative. These statements are admittedly simplistic as
QoL measures are multiply determined by factors many of
which lie outside the scope of the present research. As
shown by the regression analyses, the R
2
values were
relatively small. Nonetheless the idea of psychological cost-
benet serves to bring into sharp focus the dilemma of
urban renewal and the lengthy process of adaptation that is
required to maximize the positive impacts of relocation
while minimizing its negative ones. A people-rst urban
renewal policy should therefore be cognizant of potential
risks to these other aspects of QoL, and nd ways of
collaborating with social services and other relevant
professionals to utilize the potentially positive impacts of
neighbours and community, in addition to helping
residents improve the physical conditions of their dwell-
ings. As Ng, Cook, and Chui (2001) have argued,
community building is essential to the implementation of
a sustainable urban regeneration strategy for Hong Kong:
Only when communities are organized and have built up
their capacity to run their own affairs, can they contribute
more meaningfully to maintaining their buildings ycaring
for the local environment and quality of life y and
providing bottom-up inputs and alternative solutions to
urban regeneration and development. (p. 182)
With regard to residents place belonging, the negative
results are just as informative as the positive ones. Gender,
income and ownership status were unrelated to belonging
when environmental factors were taken into account. The
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S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 356
negative result of ownership status may on the surface
contradict the results of an American study that demon-
strated a positive association between place attachment
and home ownership in Salt Lake City (Brown, Perkins, &
Brown, 2003). On closer examination, the contradiction is
more apparent than real, because place attachment in the
American study referred specically to attachments to the
home and to the block/neighbourhood, and not to the city
as a whole. Home ownership might affect attachment to
places closer to home but not necessarily attachment to a
broader category such as the wider city. Furthermore, the
apparent difference could be due to cultural differences as
the situation in Hong Kong was different from that in Salt
Lake City. The property market in Hong Kong had
crashed from an historical height in 1997 to low ebb by
2000, reducing the market value of dwellings by over 50%,
and turning tens and thousands of owners into holders of
negative asset, demoralizing many more as a result. The
vicissitudes of home ownership in Hong Kong could hardly
be relied upon as a pillar for place belonging, much less for
societal integration (Ho, Ng, & Kam, 2003).
There are other cultural differences between Salt Lake
City and Holng Kong that may be responsible for the
different ndings noted above. In North America home
ownership often takes the form of owning a house as well
as the land on which the house stands, and for this reason
the importance of home ownership is often tied to the
ownership of the land. In Hong Kong, by contrast, the vast
majority of residents live in multi-storeyed buildings, for
whom the sentimental importance of the land is question-
able. Further, home property in Hong Kong is often
viewed as an investment or a commodity to be bought and
sold with relatively little sentimental value of home and
community involvement (Agnew, 1981; Ng et al., 2001;
Smart & Smart, 1996). Thus, it is not surprising that
another Hong Kong study, reported by La Grange, and
Ming (2001), has also found that home ownership was
unrelated to place belonging. The consistently negative
nding in these two Hong Kong studies casts doubt on the
(erroneous) assumption made by the Hong Kong SAR
Government that a housing policy that encourages
property ownership would help to increase belongingness
to the city.
Next we turn to the positive effect of older age on place
belonging. This effect may simply indicate the cumulative,
developmental nature of belongingness that accrue from
longer, richer experiences and life-course memories (Ru-
binstein & Parmelee, 1992). However, as the supplementary
analysis has shown by adding residential length to the
regression, the unique effect of age remained. Hence, the
effect of older age must also implicate other factors. One
such factor, as suggested by Hays (1998) New Zealand
study, may be older peoples relative lack of residential
mobility to live outside Hong Kong. For older folks, the
unavailability of an alternative place to make ones home
means that there is no alternative place to compete with
Hong Kong for their self-identication. This interpretation
is akin to the perceived impermeability of group boundary
in social identity theory terms (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), that
is, the belief that since ones personal well-being is bound
up with that of the membership group, one may just as well
stick with the group (or place in the present case), afrm
ones identication with and feel proud of it.
Still another explanation, related to the one above, may
be found in life-course development. As Rubinstein and
Parmelee (1992) have pointed out, place attachment has
special importance for older people in their attempts to
cope with the psychological and social pressures of ageing.
For example, place attachment provides older people with
concrete memories for keeping the past alive and for
maintaining a sense of continuity in the face of ageing.
Further, by afrming their attachment to Hong Kong,
older people can contrive a psychological home as a buffer
against the insecurity of declining social status in old age.
Of the four environmental predictors of place belonging,
the qualities of community (essential and non-essential
facilities) had no impact whereas the qualities of dwelling
and neighbours had. This pattern of results suggests a
proximity hypothesis: the environmental situation closest
to residents home (i.e. their dwellings and immediate
neighbours) exerts greater inuence than the more remote
situation (i.e. the wider community). Thus it is the physical
conditions of the home, the immediate social environment
of neighbours, and age-related experiences and psycholo-
gical needs that have the strongest inuence on belonging
to Hong Kong, and not the wider community, ownership
status, income, or gender.
5. Conclusions
The housing-related environment matters considerably
in residents QoL and their sense of belonging to Hong
Kong. Whilst the absolute amount of impact due to the
housing-related environment is small, suggesting other
factors outside the present study are also involved, in
comparative terms it is stronger than income on QoL and
also stronger than ownership status or age on belonging-
ness. Against the benchmarks of income, ownership status
of age, the present study succeeds in demonstrating the
relevance of housing-related environmental factors to two
issues (QoL and place belonging) that are important topics
in environmental social psychology. As well, because of the
important role of housing in the individuals daily lives and
in the socio-economic and political development of Hong
Kong, the ndings obtained herein also have applied values
for informing urban renewal policy.
Of particular relevance to urban renewal are ndings
concerning the nuanced effects of the three layers of the
housing-related environment. The effects of dwelling are
circumscribed in that they are applicable to life satisfaction
and sleep but not to functioning abilities or family life.
Similarly the effects of non-essential community facilities
are circumscribed and applicable only to life satisfaction
and family life. Neighbours, and especially essential
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S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 357
community facilities, are more pervasive in their impacts.
Roughly speaking, the former two layers of housing
variables (dwelling and non-essential community facilities)
are more like hardware whereas the latter two layers
(neighbours and essential own facilities) are more like
software or social capital (Coleman, 1990; Fukuyama,
1999; Putnam, 2000). To maximize the benets of
urban renewal, it is not enough to simply relocate residents
to better dwellings or to replace existing dilapidated
buildings with new and improved ones, because this
lopsided policy can only capitalize on the benets of
hardware alone. As the net cost-benet analyses have
shown, the immediate benets of hardware (due to
improvement in dwelling) over-compensate the loss of
software benets (due to uprooting of the existing
neighbourhood and community) only in sleep but not in
the other QoL measures. Efforts to improve social capital
in the neighbourhood and community to which the
residents have relocated, and to help them integrate with
and adapt to the new social environment, would also be
essential (OECD, 2001). Such efforts require time to enact
and for residents to adapt to, but should be made part of
the urban renewal policy.
Research-wise, urban renewal and its aftermath offer an
opportunity for social capital research to cover three inter-
related phases in a systematic way. (1) The loss of social
capital due to the dispersal of resident, and uprooting of
the existing neighbourhood and community. (2) How
social capital may be regained and turned into use by
residents as they adapt to and seek integration with the new
neighbourhood and community wherein they have been
relocated. (3) The creation of new social capital as urban
communities develop around new homes erected on old
sites. Central to these issues are trust, identication,
reciprocity, mutual aid and leadership, all of which are
amenable to and will benet from environmental social
psychological research.
Findings relating to place belonging point to a different
categorisation of the housing-related environmental fac-
tors. Instead of the hardware versus software categorisa-
tion pertaining to QoL, here a different categorisation
based on proximity is more pertinent. Housing-related
environmental factors that are proximal to residents home,
namely, dwellings and neighbours, are more important
than community facilities that are more distal. With respect
to demographic and socio-economic variables, it is age that
proves to be more important than property ownership for a
greater sense of belonging to Hong Kong. Here again, the
ndings have policy implications for enhancing belonging-
ness of residents living in ageing buildings and for the
political incorporation thesis.
Considering QoL and place belonging jointly, the results
show that all four housing-related environmental factors
have a role to play in either one or both of these two
objectives. Hence, a comprehensive urban renewal policy
that has both objectives at heart should incorporate all four
factors identied in the present study.
As noted under Discussion, less than 15% of the
variance of QoL and of place belonging have been
accounted for by all the predictors tested in the present
study. Whilst this is acceptable because the aim of the
study was to test for the effects of specic housing-
related environmental factors rather than to seek the
fullest possible account of QoL or place belonging,
there is considerable room for future research to do
better.
A number of specic suggestions for future research are
in order. The sample can be broadened beyond those living
in ageing buildings, and other predictors may be added.
The generally low values of R
2
point clearly to the
involvement of other variable outside the scope of the
present study. For example, the residents subjective
evaluation of their present environmental conditions may
be affected by their expectations and a host of other factors
(Michelson & van Vliet, 2002). Attitudinal factors would
seem to be particularly relevant to place belonging, for, as
shown by Felonneau (2004), an urbanophile attitude was
correlated with a strong whereas an urbanophobia
attitude was correlated with a weak urban identity.
Further, the 3-item measure of place belonging can be
expanded to cover other dimensions of belonging that have
emerged in the recent work of Pretty et al. (2003).
Attachment to a particular neighbourhood or community
within Hong Kong, though not included in this report, is
clearly a topic of great relevance to urban renewal because
relocation may disrupt attachment to the immediate
neighbourhood and community that in turn would,
according to Brown and Perkins (1992), threaten self-
denitions, undermine stability and overwhelm humans
with change, and so forth. This would be particularly
worthwhile for the understanding of the adaptation to
disruptions of place attachment. Finally, as the static cross-
sectional nature of the present study has provided only a
snapshot of the dynamical process of place belonging over
the life-course, further longitudinal research incorporating
a narrative qualitative approach would be needed to
illuminate developmental changes and subjective experi-
ences. For residents who have been affected directly by
urban renewal, an interesting question would be the extent
to which urban renewal has made a difference to their
image of the Hong Kong landscape, their collective
memory of the place, and their commitment as well as
sense of belonging to it.
Acknowledgements
The research reported herein was part of a larger project
funded by a City University of Hong Kong grant (Project
9010006). The authors thank Charles Ho and other
research assistants for collecting the data, the three
anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments,
and Billy Lam of the Urban Renewal Authority for his
interest in and support of the research.
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S.H. Ng et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2005) 347360 358
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