Factors influencing community residents’ participation intentions in habitat garden governance

Cities are increasingly embracing sustainable development, recognizing the integration of natural ecosystems into urban environments as vital. Habitat gardens, which serve as crucial links in urban ecological networks, enhance the quality and functionality of urban ecological spaces and are garnering significant social attention. The Habitat Garden Project in Shanghai is aimed at combining the building of community gardens with habitat creation. Residents are at the heart of habitat garden management, and the development of habitat gardens depends on residents’ willingness to be more involved in garden maintenance. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the factors influencing community residents’ willingness to participate in governance in the construction of habitat gardens, which can help incentivize them to do so at the source. This study develops a theoretical model to investigate residents’ desire to participate in governance and its impact factors on the basis of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the characteristics of community members’ engagement in habitat garden governance. An empirical analysis of habitat gardens in Shanghai's Changning District reveals that attitude has a significant positive effect on residents’ intentions to participate. Additionally, subjective norms, community integration, and perceived government performance have indirect positive effects on such intention through differing attitude, whereas perceived behavioural control has a weaker effect. These findings have useful policy implications for improving residents’ intentions to participate in the governance of habitat gardens.