From Urban village housing to tenant mental health: the crucial role of community attachment in Chinese megacities

Housing has been a longstanding social issue in China's megacities, profoundly affecting the residents' quality of life. Urban villages in megacities, despite their substandard living conditions, provide affordable housing for many residents. The study of living conditions and their social implications in urban villages has been a central theme in Chinese urban research. However, previous research on Chinese urban villages has paid less attention to the relationship between tenants' mental health, housing quality and community attachment. This study selects seven typical urban villages in Shenzhen as the study cases, collecting first-hand anonymous questionnaire data to study tenants' mental health status and explore the mediating role of community attachment in the relationship between housing quality and residents' mental health. The finds show that the housing quality ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>β</mml:mi></mml:math> = 0.228, <i>p</i> = <0.05) and housing affordability ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>β</mml:mi></mml:math> = 0.196, <i>p</i> = <0.05) have a significant effect on tenants' mental health. Specifically, better the housing quality and lower the housing affordability are associated with improved mental well-being among urban village tenants. Additionally, community attachment ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>β</mml:mi></mml:math> = 0.416, <i>p</i> = <0.05) has a significant positive impact on tenants' mental health, and serves as an important mediating factor in the relationship between housing quality and tenants' mental health. This study proposes that improving living quality in megacity urban villages and creating a favorable living environment can increase tenants' attachment to urban villages, and significantly improve their mental health. These factors should be emphasized in the current urban renewal policy for Chinese megacities.