A study of sense of community in public housing estates

Abstract

Hong Kong government has been operating a large-scale of public housing scheme catering the needs for lower-income families. The government has paid enormous effort in increasing public housing stock to meet the growing demand of her citizens. In addition to quantity, quality of housing is equally important. It is argued that sense of community can be utilized to evaluate the satisfaction of the housing benefit recipients. Tung Wui Estate and Shatin Pass Estate and their tenants are targeted as communities and members of this study. The Three-Factor Psychological Sense of Community is used to measure the sense of community level by conduction of a face-to-face questionnaire survey. Shatin Pass Estate is measured of a higher sense of community level than Tung Wui Estate. The results are used to compare with constructive and undesirable behavioral indicators of the tenants, covering participation in civic affairs and misdeeds under the Marking Scheme for Estate Management Enhance. It is observed that the level of sense of community of members in a community has a negative relationship with anti-social behavior, while its relationship with community involvement activities is positive.