Encouraging green lifestyle through neighborhood planning and design

Abstract

In recent years, human lifestyle has led to a more ‘consumption-oriented’ lifestyle. This phenomenon has resulted in more unsustainable lifestyle practices. Therefore, this research aims to explore and gain information on how the neighborhood planning and design would be able to encourage the green lifestyle. Literature review is prepared in the earlier stage of the research. The instruments used in this research are observation and questionnaire distribution to two selected study area which are Taman Universiti and Taman Mutiara Rini. The first objective of the research is to identify on how far the green lifestyle is being practiced while the second objective is to identify the planning and design factor that supports the green lifestyle. Descriptive analysis is used to analyze the data. The main finding of this study showed that both neighborhoods has significance difference for three green lifestyle indicator which are recreation, transportation and waste recycling behavior. Other findings showed there is a lot of dissatisfaction and inadequate facilities which can be seen from similarly on waste recycling part in which majority of the respondent did not even know the location of recycle bins and recycle centre in their neighborhood area. Besides, dissatisfaction in the available sport facilities and inadequacy of them to fulfill residents’ needs also exist. Most of the respondents use car and motorcycle as main mode of transportation around their neighborhood because of the lack of public transportation option especially in Taman Mutiara Rini and this shows the need to install or improve facilities such as pedestrian lane, bicycle lane and public transportation. The safety also encourages the residents to do physical exercise outside their house. Every part of the issue mentioned can eventually affect the lifestyle of neighborhood residents. Therefore, improvement for the facilities has to be made according to the suggestions given. In conclusion, the findings showed that neighborhood planning and design have minor contribution towards encouraging residents to practice green lifestyle in the physical aspect of the environment but not strongly encourage their behavior to do so. Since there might be another factor like awareness and willingness that more dominant to encourage residents, it is important to first promote the awareness or educate the people on their understanding in the concept of green lifestyle besides providing the neighborhood facilities and services that are able to encourage green lifestyle.