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Abstract
Problem: Planners tend to assume that household choices are made using rational decision making criteria based on accurate perceptions of a) quality, price, and reliability in urban services; and b) the risks associated with alternatives. Expectations, perceptions, and inaccurate and insufficient information may also matter, but their effects are difficult to measure and have been little studied. Growing cities in developing countries offer useful tests of accurate rationality, as newly provided infrastructure must often compete in markets where information is incomplete and risks can be considerable. Little scholarly research exists, however, on nonmaterial motivations (such as fears, perceptions, and expectations) for service demands.
Purpose: This article addresses this gap by comparing residents’ perceptions of past illness and fears of environmental and health risks with respect to more material household decision making factors such as water quality and cost. Using an original sample survey, this article tests the independent relationships among reported illness, opinions on the water–illness relationship, and perceptions of pollution in residents’ investments in piped water.
Methods: The results and analyses are based on an original household survey conducted in Can Tho, a rapidly growing city in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Basic comparative statistics about household perceptions of water quality, environmental pollution, and decision making with regard to water supply investments are followed by explanatory regression models to determine why households choose to invest in clean water supplies.
Results and conclusions: Findings suggest that fears of future illness are more important than reports and perceptions of past illness, and that industrial pollution is a rapidly growing concern that prompts household-level water supply improvements. These results show that greater attention must be paid to how perceptions, expectations, and fears influence household support for and investment in new infrastructure.
Takeaway for practice: In rapidly developing cities, or other settings subject to sudden change, resident fears and perceptions may drive decision making as much as the quality and price of the service provided. This is likely more true the more quickly circumstances change.
Research support: This project was supported by the University of Hawai’i at Manoa's Globalization Research Center.
Notes
*p < .10.
**p < .05.
***p < .01.
aIllness variables showed no significant relationships when entered into the model prior to the three environmental perception variables.
*p < .10.
**p < .05.
1. To be clear, this is not to say that biological concerns are the equivalent of attitudes; rather, attitudes are as likely to motivate behavior as science.
2. Due to the difficulty of developing an adequate sampling frame that included illegal migrants in Vietnam, it was difficult to include them in the analysis. While there are currently numerous illegal migrants in the periurban areas of Can Tho, there are no apparent major squatter settlements. This situation is likely due to strong rules on migration prior to, and in the early years of, Vietnam's Doi Moi period, as well as the fact that areas surrounding Can Tho have been densely settled since at least 1975. Thus, most illegal migrants move into existing legal housing structures, and the study focuses on the housing aspects of households rather than the family aspects of households, a focus relevant to the question of connections to new infrastructure.
3. I present only the data for the dry season, which is not much different from the wet season.
4. The data file compiled information on each household member's income, as well as net income from collective household and nonemployment-related resources such as cultivation and planting; animal husbandry, poultry raising, and aquaculture; retirement pension; early retirement subsidy; financial assistance (from government, social organizations); assistance from relatives (domestic and overseas); house/land rental; loan interests (from credit/loan); and others.
