The impact of perceived urban human settlement quality on subjective well-being: A case study using urban health examination data in the Yangtze River Delta region

Abstract

Urban health examination is an innovative measure to promote the high-quality development of urban human settlements and improve subjective well-being (SWB) of urban residents in China. However, few studies have focused on the impact of public evaluation of urban health on urban residents' SWB. Drawing on a large-scale questionnaire survey of eight cities in the Yangtze River Delta region collected from the urban health public satisfaction survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development in 2021, this study used principal component analysis and multiple regression analysis to explore principal components of perceived urban human settlement quality in the region and their impacts on urban residents' SWB, which aimed to put forward the high-quality development strategy of urban human settlements in the Yangtze River Delta region from a people-oriented perspective. The results indicate that: 1) Public satisfaction survey of urban health can extract seven principal components in terms of perceived urban human settlement quality, including urban management, urban vitality, urban comfort, urban livability, urban inclusiveness, urban safety, and urban convenience, and their cumulative contribution rate reached 66.767%. 2) All principal components of perceived urban human settlement quality had a significant impact on the SWB of residents in the region, but the impact direction of different principal components of perceived urban human settlement quality varied. More specifically, the principal components of urban management, urban vitality, urban comfort, urban livability, and urban inclusiveness had a significant positive impact on SWB, while the principal components of urban safety and urban convenience had a significant negative impact on subjective well-being. 3) The impact of perceived urban human settlement quality on SWB not only changed by different sized cities, but also varied by household registration type and age of residents. The findings can play an important role in decision making to promote urban residents' SWB via urban human settlement environment improvement in the Yangtze River Delta region.