Research on Residents’ Willingness to Pay for Promoting the Green Development of Resource-Based Cities: A Case Study in Chifeng

Meng Zhao,Chenxing Wang,Gang Wu,Yu Zhao,Xueqi Zhang

doi:10.3390/su13052833

Abstract

Resource-based cities have made significant contributions to the development of human beings but have also accumulated various unsustainable ills. For this reason, China put forward the strategy of green development. This study used questionnaires to explore the extent of residents’ understanding of regional green development in Chifeng City and their willingness to support local green development, and further analyzed the differences in the residents’ attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) with different socioeconomic characteristics. The results showed that most of the respondents supported the green development strategy and demonstrated a strong willingness to participate in regional green development investment. According to calculations, the per capita WTP for green development in Chifeng is 45.05 yuan/a (about 7 dollars/a, 5.7 euros/a). Urban residents, government employees, and well-educated respondents were more inclined to support regional green development and showed a greater WTP. Elderly and female respondents agreed more with the government’s green development promotion, while the young and middle-aged populations and men tended to have higher green development expenditures. The respondents’ annual income difference was reflected in the amounts of residents’ WTP. This study also offered scientific support and policy assistance to promote the environmental protection work from government-led to public participation.

Highlights

Resource-based cities are cities with good resource endowments, and the main share of industry and economic aggregates comes from resource and energy mining and processing [1]
Resource-based cities have made great contributions to human development, but the various unsustainable ills that have accumulated in the process of historical development have caused great harm to human survival and development
Most of the current research on green development is based on a top-down perspective, and few studies have focused on the public’s response to the regional green development

Summary

Introduction

Resource-based cities are cities with good resource endowments, and the main share of industry and economic aggregates comes from resource and energy mining and processing [1]. Resource-based cities have made significant contributions to human development, but in the long run, the unsustainable development model of resource-based cities has failed to efficiently develop local natural resources but has led to accelerated deterioration of the ecological environment in the region, economic recession, and other problems, which greatly threatened the health of the residents [2,3,4,5,6]. In 1987, the book “Our Common Future” provided a set of new theories and strategies for the coordinated development of nature, technology, economy, and society: the concept of sustainable development. This concept provided a new choice for the development of resource-based cities and humankind as a whole, and a new model of sustainable development of resource-based cities had emerged [10]

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