Measuring residents’ anxiety under urban redevelopment in China: An investigation of demographic variables

Abstract

Residents’ concerns and feelings play pivotal roles in smoothly promoting urban redevelopment. Anxiety, as an intuitive feeling toward uncertainties, generally exists among residents who are confronted with redevelopment, and this feeling has gradually attracted scholars’ attention. However, relatively few studies have focused on the multidimensional view of this concept and its influencing factors. Drawing upon a large-scale questionnaire survey conducted in 13 pilot areas in China, this study refines and verifies five prominent dimensions of anxiety, namely, housing conditions, monetary compensation, public services, life adaptation, and public participation level, through factor analysis and one-sample t-test. The finding contributes to achieving a complete understanding of anxiety, and the scales developed for measuring these dimensions lay the foundation for further empirical studies on anxiety. The individual and collective effects of age, job, and region variables on anxiety dimensions are demonstrated via independent-sample t-test and analysis of variance, which clarifies the formation process of anxiety and highlights the importance of these contextual variables. Tailored strategies for policymaking and engineering management, including establishing reasonable compensation standards, providing equal public services, and delivering high-quality housing, are proposed to relieve residents’ anxiety. These strategies are expected to consider further the sensitive group, such as the elderly, farmers, and casual workers.

Keywords

urban redevelopment / anxiety dimension / influencing factors / ANOVA / policymaking

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