Perceived benefits, negative impacts, and willingness-to-pay to improve urban green space

Abstract

Urban green spaces provide multiple benefits but incur some negative impacts. We employed the contingent valuation method to investigate Hong Kong residents’ willingness-to-pay to improve urban green space provision. A questionnaire collected 316 responses from urban-park visitors. It assessed perceptions of positive benefits and negative impacts and influences on willingness-to-pay. Health benefits attracted top scores, followed by environment and ecology. For negative impacts, road safety ranked first, followed by risks and hazards, and health and sanitation concerns. More educated and younger respondents were more willing to pay. One third of respondents, mainly the less educated and older people, registered protest votes for diverse reasons. Logistic regression was used to analyse the probability of positive bids with a socio-demographic model and an extended model incorporating explanatory perception variables. Ordinal regression identified willingness-to-pay determinants. Both statistical tests found perceived environmental and ecological benefits as key willingness-to-pay predictors. The perceived negative impacts of health and sanitation concerns were correlated with willingness-to-pay, indicating a desire to improve and contradicting past studies and expectations. The results highlighted the importance of exploring willingness-to-pay from a rarely studied perspective of valuating the potential improved utility of urban green space through suppressing negative impacts. The findings can inform park and urban management to meet user expectations.