Subjective Well-Being of Historical Neighborhood Residents in Beijing: The Impact on the Residential Environment

Abstract

The protection of historical neighborhood blocks is the key to maintaining Beijing’s historical and cultural significance. These districts in Beijing carry the history and culture of the city, however, their increasingly crowded environments and lack of infrastructure significantly affects the quality of life for residents. A regression analysis model is constructed in this paper based on data from a 2019 urban physical examination questionnaire deployed in Beijing. Beijing’s historical districts are taken as the research unit to analyze current residents’ satisfaction with the living environment, supporting further discussion on residents’ subjective well-being. Residents report low satisfaction overall with air pollution, service facilities, parking facilities, childcare facilities, daily shopping facilities, and other factors, suggesting that targeted improvements thereto may significantly improve residents’ subjective well-being. Analysis of different groups with different attributes reveals that the older residents of these areas tend to have higher education and income levels. It is believed that improvement in various factors of the living environment may improve subjective well-being; further, dissatisfaction with the living environment has a significant negative effect on the subjective well-being of, particularly, women and people with children in the family.