Is mixed-housing development healthier for residents? The implications on the perception of neighborhood environment, sense of place, and mental health in urban Guangzhou

Although housing tenure mix policy has been widely used in improving the quality of life for low-income populations, it is inconclusive whether it can deliver any mental health benefits for residents. This study explores the implications of housing tenure mix on residents’ mental health through investigating the intermediatory roles of the perception of neighborhood environment and sense of place. With 501 samples from six representative neighborhoods in Guangzhou, we constructed path analysis to test three potential mechanisms: the socioeconomic mechanism, the environment mechanism, and the person-place transactional mechanism. The results revealed that housing tenure mix level was significantly associated with neighborhood socioeconomic attributes and the perception of neighborhood environment, which shaped the sense of place. Dual mental health effects of housing tenure mix were identified: on the one hand, housing tenure mix resulted in income differentiation at the neighborhood level, which impeded individual mental functioning; on the other hand, the housing tenure mix protected residents’ internal well-being via improving the perceived social cohesion and providing a nurturing ground for a sense of place. Different mechanisms function simultaneously on the associations of housing tenure mix with mental health, which should be carefully referred to during the decision-making of public housing development.