Chenda Guo

Context: Understanding the associations between residents’ perceived community environmental quality and community identity, and their age-related differences, is important for advancing all-age-friendly communities. Methods: Drawing on Hok-Lin Leung’s Homo Urbanicus theory, this study analyzed 929 questionnaires collected in 2025 from 36 residential communities in Yangpu District, Shanghai. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the association structure among perceived community environmental quality, perceived restorative environment and community identity, and to test whether the three structural paths differ across four age groups (children, young adults, middle-aged and older adults), using measurement invariance tests, cross-group equality constraints and paired parameter comparisons, with cluster-robust standard errors. Results: (1) Perceived restorative environment significantly mediated the association between perceived community environmental quality and community identity: the indirect effect accounted for 51.5% of the total effect and the direct effect remained significant, the two links being comparable in magnitude. (2) Measurement invariance was broadly supported, permitting cross-group comparison of the structural paths, and the mediation held in all four groups (bias-corrected bootstrap, 5,000 resamples). Cross-group differences were localized: the path from perceived restorative environment to community identity was stronger in the middle-aged than in the older group (cluster-robust difference = 0.270, p = 0.021; significant under all three specifications). The children’s group scored numerically higher on the path from perceived community environmental quality to perceived restorative environment, but this did not consistently reach significance and is reported descriptively. Direct effects did not differ significantly across the four groups (Δχ ² = 2.670, Δdf = 3, p = 0.445), so the non-significant direct effect in the children’s group is not interpreted as an absent effect. Discussion: These findings are associations derived from cross-sectional data, not causal effects or observed psychological transformation. Within the ‘events, people, time and space’ framework of the Homo Urbanicus theory, life-stage differences in the weighting of self-existence and coexistence needs offer a coherent interpretation of the age-specific path patterns. The results support the differentiated provision of restorative space in age-friendly community planning.

With the advancement of healthy city development and community renewal practices, the influence of perceived community environmental quality on residents’ psychological well-being has attracted increasing attention. Previous research has shown that the built environment is closely related to residents’ well-being; however, most studies have focused on objective spatial elements or facility provision and have paid insufficient attention to the mechanisms through which subjective environmental perceptions operate in the process by which the environment affects psychological well-being. From the perspective of Homo Urbanicus theory, this study takes 36 communities in Yangpu District, Shanghai, as cases and uses data from 882 valid questionnaires. Structural equation modeling is employed to examine the relationships among perceived community environmental quality, perceived environmental restorativeness, and residents’ psychological well-being, and to further explore age-related patterns among young-old, middle-old, and oldest-old groups. The results show that perceived community environmental quality has a significant positive effect on residents’ psychological well-being and produces a significant indirect effect through perceived environmental restorativeness. Exploratory age-stratified analyses further suggested different pathway patterns among the young-old, middle-old, and oldest-old groups. On this basis, the study further proposes a four-quadrant model of spatial contact opportunities and a five-category accessibility classification and accordingly develops community environment optimization strategies for older adults of different ages. The findings provide a theoretical basis and practical reference for healthy-community development and age-friendly community renewal.

Historic university campuses increasingly face simultaneous demands for functional renewal and heritage conservation amid rapid urbanization. However, the relationship between campus landscape perceptions and students’ built heritage conservation intention, together with the psychological pathways underlying this relationship, remains insufficiently understood. This cross-sectional study examines the association between Campus Landscape and Built Heritage Conservation Intention, focusing on the mediating roles of Place Identity and Place Dependence. Using a multidimensional place-attachment framework, the proposed model was tested with structural equation modeling (SEM) based on 569 student questionnaires collected at the Jungong Road Campus of the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (formerly Hujiang University), which contains the Hujiang University modern architectural complex, designated as a major historical and cultural site protected at the national level in China. Campus Landscape was positively associated with Built Heritage Conservation Intention. Place Identity showed a significant positive indirect association, whereas the indirect association through Place Dependence was not statistically significant. In subgroup analyses, the estimated indirect association through Place Dependence was positive among undergraduates and negative among postgraduates, but it was not statistically significant in either subgroup and should therefore be interpreted as exploratory. These findings highlight the significant indirect association through Place Identity and offer illustrative implications for campus landscape planning that is attentive to place identity and for the conservation of historic campuses in active use.