The Environmental Quality of Life (QoLe) model establishes relationships between environmental qualities, personal characteristics of people and perceived residential satisfaction.
Personal characteristics of people moderate the level of satisfaction people experience from the physical setting / social relationships. Previous studies demonstrate that individual characteristics such as demographic variables, social class and lifecycle stage (e.g. age, gender, income, education, length of residence, ownership, marital status) affect neighbourhood satisfaction (Francescato, Weidemann & Anderson, 1989; Hur & Morrow-Jones, 2008; Rodgers
& Converse, 1975; Türkoglu, 1997). Apart from socio-demographic factors, culture and value
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Exploring the environmental quality of life for sustainable neighbourhood planning 3-29 systems also play a major role in setting standards for satisfaction (The WHOQOL Group, 1994; Wanden-Hannay, 2005).
This research has identified a gap in the literature. Current models of residential satisfaction and QoL omit personal preferences such as differences in priorities, culture or value systems. It is essential to understand such attributes of people in the context of sustainable housing. It is important for person-environment congruence that people who reside in ecologically sustainable housing hold particular environmental intentions and respond to them accordingly. If people possess pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, they can perceive such an environment to be positively aligned with their beliefs (Hostetler & Noiseux, 2010). If not, people can find it hard to accept the priority given to the environment over individual convenience and comfort.
Thus, this research has introduced an additional dimension in personal attributes i.e.
environmental attitudes of people as an indicator of environmental preferences.
The proposed model examines the interaction of environmental features, personal attributes, and perceived neighbourhood satisfaction to understand environmental and human well-being. It hypothesises that residents of an appropriately sustainable community with pro-environmental attitudes will be satisfied with their residential environmental qualities. Sustainable neighbourhood quality and corresponding satisfaction with the neighbourhood environment demonstrate congruent people-environment relationships, which further contribute towards environmental Quality of Life (QoLe).
The model conceptualises environmental and human well-being as a result of sustainable environmental qualities, and pro-environmental attitudes of residents combined with a high level of residential satisfaction. It is capable of explaining other possible consequences too. For example, if people do not hold pro-environmental attitudes, they are less likely to prefer sustainable environmental features or to take initiative in protecting nature / environment. If they happen to live in a sustainable community, they might not find protection of the natural environment appealing, the sustainable built environment attractive, interactive social relationship engaging, and optimised infrastructure sufficient to suit their lifestyle. Thus this consequence would yield a low level of satisfaction with their living environment as a result of value judgements. The interaction of people–environment relationships, in this case, is not
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congruent and environmental well-being cannot be claimed from the above-mentioned combinations.
Similarly, people with pro-environmental attitudes living in conventional housing could find it hard to practice a sustainable lifestyle due to lack of sustainable features and, as a result, they could be less satisfied with their neighbourhood. Pro-environmental attitudes alone do not help unless there is sufficient infrastructure to practice corresponding environmental behaviour, i.e.
environmental well-being cannot be met in the absence of sustainable neighbourhood features.
In the same way, people with low environmental attitudes could find that their expectations are well met in conventional housing but, with the lack of sustainable features in the neighbourhood, environmental well-being cannot be achieved, even though the people may be satisfied with the physical environment.
This research investigates three constituents (Environmental qualities, Personal characteristics and Perceived residential satisfaction) individually and in combination to understand the interaction between them for QoLe, and environmental and human well-being. The study investigates six research questions.
The first research question explores neighbourhood environmental quality:
What are the neighbourhood environmental features characterising the ESD and the conventional neighbourhood?
This question investigates neighbourhood qualities using sustainable development principles that aim to improve the quality of life for residents, ecosystem thinking in site planning, reducing and conserving resources and energy sources, integrating economic activities at the local level, and adopting materials and energy sources from the local bioregion. Chapter 5 answers this research question.
The second research question is related to the environmental worldview:
What are the environmental attitudes of the people living in the ESD and how do they differ from the conventional neighbourhood residents?
This study uses environmental attitudes as an indicative variable for environmental preference.
Two-dimensional environmental attitudes (Preservation and Utilisation) are determined for each respondent and aggregated for the housing estates.
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Exploring the environmental quality of life for sustainable neighbourhood planning 3-31 The third research question examines the influence of socio-demographic attributes on environmental attitudes:
What is the relationship between socio-demographic attributes of the respondents and their environmental attitudes?
In general, socio-demographic attributes can explain some characteristics of people, which can be reflected in their environmental attitudes. Chapter 6 responds to the second and third research questions.
The fourth research question investigates overall neighbourhood satisfaction:
How satisfied are people with their residential environmental quality?
This research question aims to capture overall neighbourhood satisfaction expressed by residents. It combines various attributes that contribute towards residential environmental quality.
The fifth research question examines socio-demographic attributes and overall neighbourhood satisfaction:
What is the relationship between socio-demographic attributes of the respondents and overall neighbourhood satisfaction?
This research question investigates if there any relationship can be established between demographic variables and overall neighbourhood satisfaction. The relationship can be examined using Pearson product-moment correlation between overall neighbourhood satisfaction and important socio-demographic variables - gender, number of occupants, income, length of residency, lot area and house size.
The sixth research question identifies significant neighbourhood variables that contribute to overall neighbourhood satisfaction:
How do the components of neighbourhood satisfaction predict overall neighbourhood satisfaction?
All neighbourhood features do not affect overall neighbourhood satisfaction equally. This study employs factor analysis to reveal the variables that contribute to neighbourhood satisfaction and multiple regression analysis to highlight the most influential variables for neighbourhood
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satisfaction. Chapter 7 discusses research questions four, five and six on perceived neighbourhood satisfaction.
The seventh research question combines environmental quality, personal attributes and perceived residential satisfaction to understand the extent to which they are linked to each other to determine people-environment relationships and thus environmental QoL (QoLe):
How do the environmental quality of the neighbourhood, perceived neighbourhood satisfaction and environmental attitudes of people relate to each other?
This study uses environmental attitudes as a moderating variable to examine further the relationships between environmental quality and perceived satisfaction. Chapter 8 presents a discussion of the overall findings and revisits the QoLe model.
Summary
The chapter discussed sustainable development measurement approaches including economic and environmental indicators which are established methods of evaluating sustainable development. Most often, they are also used to infer social progress (Levett, 1998). However, as was pointed out, the relationship between economic progress and social progress is not straightforward (Costanza, Hart, Posner & Talberth, 2009; Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi, 2009). Thus, it is necessary to adopt social indicators to understand if sustainable development is aimed at enhancing human well-being (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [DEFRA], 2003; Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions [DETR],1999).
Sustainable development evaluation tools use objective indicators for rating systems which have given priority to environmental responses, physical features, and infrastructure and services available in the neighbourhood (USGBC, 2009). The tools also attempt to measure social progress through objective attributes, which have low validity in assessing human well-being (Pacione, 1982; Tuan Seik, 2000). Therefore, a new approach to measuring a sustainable neighbourhood requires both evaluation of objective environmental quality and perceived neighbourhood satisfaction for environmental and human well-being. The relationships between environmental quality and neighbourhood satisfaction are well studied, and are informative about the necessity for high quality environmental conditions for human well-being (Bonaiuto, 2004; Ha & Weber, 1994; Potter, Chicoine & Speicher, 2001). Social science uses QoL
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Exploring the environmental quality of life for sustainable neighbourhood planning 3-33 indicators to evaluate human well-being. However, the conventional QoL approach does not account for environmental aspects of neighbourhoods.
Local level sustainable development aims to uphold both environmental and human well-being.
Therefore, a new model called ‘environmental Quality of Life (QoLe)’ was proposed based on people-environment relationships. According to the QoLe model, people-environment congruity can be achieved if people are satisfied with sustainable development and the associated environmental features of their neighbourhood. The environmental attitudes of a person play an important role in the model, as the design of sustainable neighbourhoods emphasises environmental considerations that could require some level of behavioural adaptation. Seven research questions have been framed to investigate the research. The next chapter will explore the research methodology required to answer the research questions.