NYU Wagner

Neighborhood Design and the Energy  Efficiency of Urban Lifestyle in China: Treating Residence and Mobility as Lifestyle Bundle 

with Yang Chen PHD Candidate (MIT)

Within a given social-technological system, the lifestyle choice households make is the ultimate driving force of energy use and related emission. Home energy use and personal travel are the two main direct sources of energy use and greenhouse gas emission for household consumption. These two sources are the focus of this research, and this study will treat residence and mobility as a lifestyle bundle. This study aims to utilize this lifestyle bundle structure to find out if attributes of neighborhood design could influence households’ lifestyle choice of residence and mobility with aspect to energy consumption, using one city in China as case study.

The bundle structure has an ownership component and a usage component. The ownership component includes residential choice and vehicle ownership portfolio. Residential choice studies the choice of homeownership, housing type, and housing location. Household vehicle ownership portfolio is the mix of household-owned vehicles, including private automobile, gasoline two-wheelers, electric two-wheelers, and bicycles. The usage component conditions on the ownership component, and focuses on home energy use and personal travel behaviors of households. The City of Jinan in Shandong Province is selected as case study city. By conducting interviews among stratified urban households, this study first explores the decision making dynamics of household residence and vehicle purchases, home energy use habits and travel behaviors, attitudes towards lifestyle, etc. Hypotheses are formed at this stage and translated into model specifications to be tested under the bundle structure using Generalized Random Utility Models or Structural Equation Models. Household survey on residence, vehicle ownership, home energy use, and travel behavior is conducted in 20 selected neighborhoods representing 5 different neighborhood design typologies. Attributes of neighborhood designs are extracted from field survey and GIS.

This mixed-method study will contribute to linking the literatures on relationship of built environment and travel behavior, on vehicle ownership and use, and on household energy demand. It provides new insights of the interaction of residence and mobility as lifestyle bundle, and also enriches the empirical findings in the developing world. Practically, this study will provide planning agencies in China with policy suggestions on the energy and emission related benefits of land use planning and design guidelines. More broadly, this study provides policy makers with not only the understanding of the driving forces and interactions of private motorization and residential development, but also a comprehensive framework for modeling and scenario analysis of direct energy demand and greenhouse gas emission at the household level.