Are residents living in eco-districts environmentally conscious? A case study of environmental attitudes of residents living in the European Green Capital of Stockholm, Sweden

Sammanfattning: With rapid urbanization, climate change and population growth in the 21st century, the development of eco-cities, especially in those fast-growing populated countries such as China and India, is important to minimize human impact on the planet. Nevertheless,  despite that there is a very well-designed eco-city, if residents living in an eco-city are not environmentally conscious, the eco-city is sustainable only in its tangible part – technologies and infrastructure, but not in its intangible part – environmental attitudes and behavioral patterns of residents. The intangible part is important since HUMANS are the root cause of current climate change (IPCC, 2014). When the policy makers decide to build an eco-city, this thesis thus argues that they should consider not only the tangible part of the city, but also consider the intangible part of eco-city – environmental attitudes and behavioral patterns of residents. This thesis provides a survey of environmental attitudes of 150 Stockholm residents living in three districts: Hammarby Sjöstad, Östermalm and Bromma. It also reports on a well-developed environmental project which is led by residents living in the Stockholm eco-district of Hammarby Sjöstad. The scope of this research is the City of Stockholm (Swedish: Stockholms kommun / Stockholms stad). The objectives of this research are: (1) to find out the environmental attitudes of residents living in three selected districts of Stockholm; (2) to understand the development of Hammarby Sjöstad and find out if residents living in Hammarby Sjöstad are particularly environmentally conscious; (3) to provide suggestions for the policy makers (e.g. Chinese and Indian) of how to take environmental attitudes of residents into consideration when planning and developing projects such as eco-cities. Among the findings of the research are: (1) in the high income, educated, and political conservative Stockholm districts where I conducted my surveys, respondents in general report high levels of environmental concerns and environmentally friendly behavior; (2) however, concerns questions relating to cars (parking restrictions, limiting or banning cars from their districts or Stockholm as a whole), opinions were very divided. There seemed to be much reluctance among many to put severe restrictions on the use of cars; (3) in the eco-district Hammarby Sjöstad, the expression of environmental consciousness did not appear particularly different from the other districts. Many respondents in the district moved into the area for diverse reasons other than environmental ones; (4) however, a well-developed environmental project which is led by residents living in Hammarby Sjöstad has emerged in the eco-district, where comparable projects were not found in the other districts in Stockholm.