Factors influencing place attachment in urban China: a path analysis

Exploring influencing factors of place attachment is important to understand individuals’ sense of belonging and adaptation in a new neighborhood, which is also important to an individual's well-being. Cities in China are expanding at a phenomenal pace and undergoing a rapid suburbanization. This is mainly achieved through large-scale appropriation and circulation of rural land in suburbs, leading to displacement of landless farmers and development of alternative housing. In the process of redeveloping suburbs, the market economy in China has led to a flourishing real estate market and many real-estate developers have actively participated in the construction of suburban commercial housing. Therefore, sub-urbanization induced residential mobility can be divided into resettlement of involuntary movers to replacement housing and relocation of voluntary movers to commercial housing. The aim of this study is to determine which factors in terms of household and neighborhood characteristics, type of residential mobility (voluntary vs. involuntary), neighborhood satisfaction, neighborhood adaptation and place attachment before the resettlement influence place attachment after the resettlement. This is done by a path analysis based on survey data collected in 2015 from a survey of 786 respondents in eight neighborhoods in Changchun, a city in China that is experiencing large-scale residential mobility to suburbs. The results indicate that type of residential mobility, personal social-demographics and neighborhood characteristics have direct and indirect effects on the place attachment after the resettlement, while, surprisingly, place attachment before the resettlement has no influence on the post place attachment. The post place attachment is influenced by personal social-demographics, such as age, gender, car ownership and income level. Regarding the effects of neighborhood characteristics the results show that only neighborhood social interactions and the housing space have effects on place attachment. Neighborhood adaptation and satisfaction are not only direct predictors of post place attachment, but also mediators between exogenous variables and post place attachment