The place sustainability scale: measuring residents’ perceptions of the sustainability of a town

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this research is to develop a scale that assesses place sustainability from the perspectives of residents, who are the main stakeholders. The resulting place sustainability scale (PSS) is a practical and useful tool for place administrators to measure place sustainability at all scales. Design/methodology/approach This research analyses the data collected from 636 residents in the town of Salaya in Central Thailand. To develop the scale, the authors randomise 318 samples to conduct an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and analyse the rest with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Findings A total of 11 factors of place sustainability were generated with 33 questionnaire items. Those factors were natural environment, social equity, economic growth, built environment, landscape, liveability, conviviality, transport, energy, water and waste management and governance. Practical implications The PSS can help place administrators, such as chief executives of sub-districts, mayors of town municipalities or governors of provinces, assess perceived sustainability from the perspectives of their residents. They can use this scale in conjunction with other sustainability indicators that calculate data from real variables and values to develop a comprehensive view of sustainability that includes both real and perceptual dimensions. Originality/value Numerous available indices and indicators use real variables and values to measure place sustainability. However, they have limitations: they can be complex and incomprehensible to outsiders or they might not support participative processes and policymaking. This research develops an alternative measure of place sustainability that assesses the perceptions of residents.

Sustainability as a place brand position: a resident-centric analysis of the ten towns in the vicinity of Bangkok

“…The second section consisted of questions that measure residents' perceptions of the sustainability of the ten towns using 36 7-point Likert-scale items rated from (1) Strongly Disagree to (7) Strongly Agree. The scale was developed by Taecharungroj et al (2018) to measure place sustainability of a town in Thailand. Therefore, it is compatible with this current research.…”

“…The second feature of sustainability is the famous three pillars, often referred to as the triple bottom line: environmental quality, economic prosperity and social justice (Mori and Christodoulou 2012). In the context of place management, the sustainability of places, or place sustainability, is a concept that seeks to understand and contribute to positive ecological, societal, economic and other processes in places (Pickett et al 2013;Taecharungroj et al 2018). Place sustainability is a complex issue because it concerns the interactions among various and intertwined elements such as the built environment, nature and humans within cities and towns (Campbell 1996).…”

“…The previous literature has identified many dimensions of place sustainability; Ahvenniemi et al (2017) identified dimensions that include the natural environment, built environment, water and waste management, transport, energy, economy, education, well-being, health and safety and governance and citizen engagement. This paper adopted 11 prominent dimensions in place sustainability according to Taecharungroj et al (2018) because that paper includes a scale that can be used to measure the perceived sustainability of towns' residents:…”

“…Sustainability indicators and indices have been popular in both academia and practices because they provide several benefits to a place, such as giving information, raising awareness, fostering communication, assessing performance, facilitating decision making, demonstrating accountability and benchmarking with other cities (Alberti 1996;Choon et al 2011;Hiremath et al 2013;Nieminen and Hyytinen 2015). In addition to those stated benefits, this study used sustainability indicators from a study by Taecharungroj et al (2018) to measure sustainability and thus infer an appropriate place brand position for the ten towns, which could be added to the long list of existing benefits of sustainability indicators.…”

Contribution of Infrastructure to the Township’s Sustainable Development in Southwest China

“…As far as smaller regions, Visvaldis et al [22] regarded traffic jam, pollution, and crime as key for township's that are sustainable to live when they tried to find the indicators for township's sustainable development. Taecharungroj [27] assessed the sustainable development of townships through 33 survey items in term of some factors including economic growth, social equity, environment and land scape, transport, energy, etc. Xu [28], through surveying eight townships in the north of Zhejiang Province, proposed an improved indicator system to assess the progress of the SDGs in the county level.…”