• TOD is popular but its impact on residential satisfaction remains underexplored. • Our study compares residential satisfaction in new vs old neighbourhoods in Kai Tak. • Connected green spaces helped reduce perceived density in new neighbourhoods. • TOD brought in new and diverse shops but also gentrification in old neighbourhoods. • New neighbourhoods have pleasant design but overly rely on metro as public transport. As a popular urban (re-)development approach, Transit-oriented Development (TOD) has received substantial scholarly attention, from its travel behaviour impact, typologies to gentrification, spatial and land-use effects. However, one relatively underexplored aspect of TOD is residential satisfaction, often used to approximate people’s well-being in relation to their living environment. In this paper, we aim to examine and compare residents’ satisfaction and perceptions of the built environment between newly created and old existing neighbourhoods in Kai Tak Station TOD in Hong Kong. We adopted a qualitative approach which was less seen in TOD studies and conducted focus group discussions with residents living in new and old neighbourhoods in Kai Tak, guided by the framework of 5Ds, i.e. Density, Diversity, Design, Destination accessibility, and Distance to transit. From the findings we synthesised four key discussion points. Firstly, certain design features, i.e. interconnected open green spaces, helped lessen the perceived density of the new neighbourhoods. Secondly, the TOD brought in new and diverse shops and businesses but also led to signs of gentrification in the old neighbourhoods, with certain destinations, such as social services, lacking in the new neighbourhoods. Thirdly, Kai Tak TOD had a pleasant design overall, though certain pedestrian connections and the management of open spaces could be improved. Fourthly, Kai Tak TOD relied almost exclusively on metro as transit service, with other modes including buses and the monorail relatively neglected. These findings could inform future TODs in bringing greater satisfaction for both existing and newly created communities of residents.
Yip et al. (Fri,) studied this question.