Urban-Scale Social Responsibility in China: Behavioral Perspective in Real Estate and Transportation

“Social responsibility” has become a maxim of urban development in Chinese cities, yet there is no consistent set of actions that “social responsibility” must entail. The drive for “social responsibility” has not coalesced into coherent norms governing personal, corporate, and governmental actions. To better understand the behavioral constituents of social responsibility, we propose to measure and analyze behavioral perspectives on “urban-scale” social responsibility. This project surveys how urban residents in China perceive and enact socially responsible behavior across two urban policy domains: real estate and transportation. We will inventory the most essential features of social responsibility in these systems and assess how social categories and self-associations with the city affect residents’ beliefs about social responsibility and corresponding actions.