Evaluation of relative importance of environmental issues associated with a residential estate in Hong Kong

This study investigates the relationship between the residence and the relative importance of different environmental attributes by focusing on a sample of residents in Hong Kong. Both discrete choice analysis and Likert-scale rating were employed to reveal the importance and the hierarchical order of importance being used by the residents in their evaluation of six environmental attributes. Our results generally showed that the residents actually evaluated the environmental attributes as what they perceived. Our analysis revealed that neither the environmental quality of neighborhood area nor the housing estate design exerted significant influence on the hierarchical order of importance considered by the residents. It was found that the nature of environmental attributes exerted a significant impact. The residents were generally found to have placed greater importance on those environmental attributes that would pose a threat to themselves rather than to the environment. Also, the residents were shown to consider those environmental attributes that would threaten their personal health to be more important than those would threaten their comfort. The long-term significance of this study is to enhance the understanding of different environmental attributes associated with the housing estates. This enhanced understanding should help inform the decision making process on prioritizing the implementation of environmental strategies within a housing estate when confronted with a limited budget.