“Home sweet home”. How did COVID-19 affect residential satisfaction and residential attachment in Sydney, Australia ?

COVID-19 led to lockdowns in the major economies of the world, and Sydney,
Australia, was no exception. Lockdowns have led to employees spending increasing amounts of time at home and in their residential neighbourhood undertaking ‘working from home’ or WFH. An internet-based survey is used to investigate how residential satisfaction and residential attachment may have changed as a result of this increase in WFH. The results suggest that residential satisfaction seems not to be affected by WFH experience. For residential attachment, residents who experience increased residential satisfaction also feel more attached to their home.
The survey also allows an in-depth analysis of objective and subjective perceptions of the residential neighbourhood and the way in which these influence residential satisfaction and residential attachment. The results suggest that residential satisfaction is significantly influenced by the latent variables of ‘perceived safety’ and ‘perceived accessibility’. As part of the analysis, the paper also provides empirical evidence to support how residential satisfaction affects life satisfaction, thus contributing additional evidence in the direction of causation which has had mixed outcomes in previously reported empirical research. The paper concludes with some policy implications of how policy makers can encourage residential attachment which brings with it benefits of greater commitment to, and willingness to work to improve the neighbourhood.