Direct and Indirect Impacts of Housing Tenure Mix on Antisocial Behavior: A Study of Hong Kong’s Private Housing Communities

The problem of antisocial behavior (ASB) undermines the life quality of urban residents. While many previous studies on ASB focused on the solutions, little effort has been dedicated to finding out the social determinants of the levels of ASB problems in private housing communities, especially in high-rise residential settings in Asian cities. Previous empirical research suggests that ASB seriousness can be a function of poor neighborliness, community detachment and management efficacy. Yet, the link between housing tenure mix and ASB problems has been underexplored in the literature. In this light, a multilevel design with hierarchical modeling was employed to test the hypothesized direct and indirect (moderation) effects of housing tenure mix on the perceived seriousness of ASB in neighborhoods. The dataset came from a structured questionnaire survey of 592 residents living in 17 private high-rise housing communities in Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong. The results indicated that the seriousness of the ASB problem was largely dependent on poor neighborliness and community detachment. A higher level of renting in a housing community was also found to amplify perceived ASB seriousness, and enhance the influence of poor neighborliness on ASB seriousness. The research findings highlight the importance of tenure mix in predicting the degree of ASB proliferation in a housing community.