Unveiling and Evaluating Residential Satisfaction at Community and Housing Levels in China: Based on Large-Scale Surveys

In recent decades, China has witnessed remarkable growth in housing construction, yet housing-related complaints have not declined significantly, highlighting the gap between housing quality and public expectations. Against this background, this study analyzes 32,277 national surveys to unpack residential satisfaction with green-livable communities in China. Entropy and standard-deviation weighting identified 16 priority indicators; artificial neural networks revealed weak direct influence of basic demographics on satisfaction, highlighting non-linear demand patterns. While 65–75% of respondents are satisfied with most attributes, significant city-level gaps persist—Beijing peaks near 90%, Chongqing falls below 50%. Dissatisfaction converges on three domains: infrastructure (parking, barrier-free access), building performance (leakage, noise, thermal defects) and smart systems (security, energy, health monitoring). Residents’ improvement priorities have shifted from basic shelter to health safety, smart technology, humanistic care and ecological amenities. A “basic-security + quality-upgrade” strategy is proposed: short-term repairs of common defects, medium-term smart-sustainable upgrades and long-term participatory governance. The findings not only enrich the theoretical framework of community satisfaction research but also provide practical guidance for enhancing community quality and meeting residents’ expectations in the context of China’s rapid urbanization and housing development.