Exploring the Mechanism of Residential Attractiveness in Compact Urban Areas – a Case Study of Hong Kong

Abstract

Compact cities adopt high density, mixed land use and transit-oriented development (TOD). For sustainable development, compact development reduces the use of automobile and lessens the overdevelopment of land resources. For solving urban sprawl and housing shortage, more and more metropolises have adopted compact development. Academics, planners and policy makers mainly focused on evaluating the impacts of neighborhood attributes on housing prices and residential movements. Few have examined the relationships between residents’ demand and residential attractiveness in compact cities. Therefore, this study develops Residential Attractiveness Evaluation (RAE) Model to evaluate the attractive degree of urban areas based on residents’ demand in compact cities. Hong Kong is chosen as the study area which is a typical compact city. The results show that districts near the CBD and both sides of Victoria Harbor have highest residential attractiveness than other areas. Community planners and policy makers should consider residential attractiveness based on residents’ demand in efforts to promote sustainable development. Residential attractiveness is the foundation of residential land use planning and policies. Planners in compact cities should adopt various planning strategies according to different residential attractiveness. Moreover, residential attractiveness is the benchmark of evaluating residents’ satisfaction of new residential planning and policies.