Critical Causal Factors of Failure (CCFF) in adopting a biophilic city concept in Malaysia

Abstract

Biophilic city is a sister term of the green city that eventually improvised the concept of the latter. The concept of biophilic city holistically brings humans closer to nature rather than bringing nature to humans. Regrettably, in introducing this concept, numerous causal factors of failure need to be faced by the government, local authorities, developers, consultants, and even contractors. Within this context, this paper aims to investigate the causal factors of the failure of adopting a biophilic city concept in Malaysia. This paper provides a review of existing literature related to causal factors of failure of cities in general towards the adoption of a biophilic city concept. A set of questionnaires was designed based on the literature review that may well facilitate in responding to the causal factors of failure in adopting a biophilic city in Malaysia. The questionnaire underwent a pilot study consists of 15 respondents with a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.96. After the pilot test, the questionnaire survey was distributed among 143 construction players involved in the design and planning of city development, namely local authorities, developers and consultants. The most top three critical causal factors of failure in (CCFF) adopting biophilic city concepts in Malaysia are the lack of government awareness, followed by biophilic city scale and space value conflict as well as limited existing green spaces.