In this study, we examined the relationships between housing characteristics, neighborhood built-environment features, and people’s mental health in Hong Kong, an Asian city well known for its high-density and high-rise housing. The potential mediating effects of people’s perceived living environment were also considered in the analysis. We collected data from 221 participants from two communities in Hong Kong, i.e., Sham Shui Po (SSP) and Tin Shui Wai (TSW), using a stratified random sampling approach. Big datasets were also used to derive relevant built-environment features at the street block level. We used structural equation modeling to explore the complex relationships among housing characteristics, built-environment features, and mental health. The results indicate that the associations between built-environment quality and people’s mental health are weak. For communities with relatively poor housing conditions (i.e., SSP in this study), the impact of housing characteristics on mental health may be more direct; for communities with relatively good housing conditions (i.e., TSW in this study), the effect of housing characteristics on mental health may be indirect. Our findings shed light on the importance of considering different contexts in developing policies related to housing and built environment and mental health.

Problem, research strategy, and findings: From the 1970s to the 1990s, the Hong Kong government developed several new towns to alleviate pressure on contemporary urban areas and provide housing for a rapidly growing population. Although self-containment is a key objective in building new towns, no research has assessed residents’ behavioral outcomes, limiting the objective assessment of the spatial planning of new towns. In this study, we hypothesize that adequate job accessibility would offer residents shorter commutes and hence more time for noncommute travel and activities and better work–life balance. Drawing on census and household travel survey data, we assess the spatial planning of new towns by investigating the effects of job accessibility on commute and noncommute travel durations. We find that a) there is a disparity in self-containment and access to job opportunities between these towns and urban areas, b) job accessibility strongly influences commute duration, and c) prolonged commutes can reduce noncommute travel duration, particularly for public transportation users, suggesting that this may harm work–life balance for workers with long commutes. Takeaway for practice: Building a self-contained new town requires strategic spatial planning and a concrete plan to develop the local economy. To cultivate local employment, planners should develop a regional plan that differentiates main industries in different new towns. A good starting point would be a thorough understanding of the history, spatial distribution of existing industries and firms, and skills of local workers in these towns. We recommend more proactive efforts to a) establish more self-contained new town communities, b) relocate jobs in certain sectors (e.g., government offices) to new towns, c) strengthen an integrated transit system, and d) adopt alternative work schedules (e.g., telecommuting, flexible work hours) in certain industries to relieve commute burdens, improving both commute experience and work–life balance.

Aging in place has become a popular social policy worldwide. This paper argues that well-being is an important outcome of aging in place, upon which older people develop autonomy and environmental proactivity. The temporal dimension of aging in place highlights development of place attachment, which includes place identity and place dependence. The study explores how older people, who live inhigh-density urban environments, make sense of well-being and place attachment by articulating their daily lives. Community dwelling older people aged 65 and above, who came from neighborhoods with high aging population and residential density but high and low median household incomes, were invited for focus group discussions. Multifaceted meanings of well-being include various dimensions that cover individual-collective and material-spiritual (psychological) construct. Meanings of place attachment include values of, bonding ties to, and memories about places. Three pathways are identified linking place attachment and multifaceted well-being. The study finds that social welfare and material richness are not the only determinants of well-being. Fulfillment of higher psychological needs, such as positive evaluation of life and self-actualization, should be emphasized by which older people can make the most of their life in old age.

This paper investigates the interrelationships of place qualities, people’s sense of place and subjective well-being in the ultra-high-density environment of urban Hong Kong. We argue that place qualities affect people’s sense of place that predicts their subjective well-being. The study develops two scales on place qualities and sense of place, and develops five hypotheses. A total of 814 questionnaire responses were obtained from two urban neighbourhoods in the city, 399 from the elderly (aged 65 or above) and 415 from other adults (aged 18–64). The results reveal a positive relationship between people’s assessment of place qualities and their sense of place: public and community spaces are prominent predictors of a stronger sense of place; people who have lived longer in the community show a stronger sense of place; people having a stronger sense of place display greater emotional well-being; and people who have a stronger affective and behavioural sense of place also demonstrate greater social and psychological well-being. The research findings have significant implications for urban planning and design practices in high-density urban forms, underlining the importance of place qualities, especially socio-petal spaces for people’s sense of place. Sense of place is a good predictor of people’s multi-faceted subjective well-being.

This paper investigates when and why a civil society will challenge growth-biased plans, made by a top-down mode of planning within the non-democratic setting of an executive government-led and economics-first society. In the controversies surrounding the Government's plans to further the filling in of the beautiful Victoria Harbour to produce land for “development” in the first decade of the post-colonial Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), participatory and multi-stakeholder-centred planning practices emerged when many interested parties were dissatisfied with the official reclamation plan. Using the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, an anti-reclamation civil society organization managed to take the government to court and successfully stop further harbour reclamation, forcing government officials to heed alternative views on harbourfront planning, and to pay attention to non-government professionals ready to use their skills to serve the growing civil society. However, despite this early success, the progress of the case so far suggests that participation remains tokenistic, producing minimal fundamental institutional changes. Hence, professionals within and outside the government continue to face an interrelated, two-pronged challenge: how to further empower lay citizens as they seek new ways to institutionalize a more participatory mode of planning governance.