Local Authorities are in the lowest level administration structure in Sri Lanka. As enormous amount of literature suggest, service quality and beneficiaries satisfaction are very important concepts that local authorities must understand in order to remain efficient and effective. Accordingly, SERVQUAL is one of best models used in measuring level of service quality of local authorities. This paper aims to measure the satisfaction level of beneficiaries' in selected Urban Local Authorities in Colombo district using SERVQUAL model and describe how beneficiaries perceive service quality and whether they are satisfied with services offered by local authorities. Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), Dehivala Mount Lavinia MC, Mahagaragama UC and Boralesgamuwa UC limits were selected as sampling framework. Unit of analysis is beneficiaries and 50 beneficiaries were interviewed in each authority using seven point Likert scaled, self-administered questionnaire. Data was analyzed as per the SERVQUAL model with help of SPSS 20.0 package. Considering all aspects by which public are satisfied related to the services provided by the local authorities in selected sample, Maharagama UC is providing expected services as it is; with a small gap -0.02. Also CMC's gap -0.11 indicates a better sign of their services without having a large deviation from the expected level. However, Boralesgamuwa UC is the most inefficient services providing local authority which scores a 3.00 gap. As per the gap shows, Dehiwal Mt.Levenia is also slightly weak service providing local authority. However, further research on this area is required to verify the findings and find out the reasons/causes to the dissatisfaction (gap) of the people who look for services from Local Authorities in Sri Lanka.

Sampling a set of households from three districts of the Western Province, this paper explored the landscape of lockdown home gardening which took place during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka. A structured questionnaire published online enabled collecting 939 household responses. A descriptive analysis performed using the IBM SPSS package highlights that the lockdown conditions have intensified the level of home gardening of the participants. The study validates the findings from recent studies that home gardening has no dividing line when it comes to the socioeconomic character of households. Primary benefit of home gardening is of households' being in seek of good and healthy consumption, vegetables and fruits have been the most preferred crop types to grow. Application of organic fertiliser have been preferred by the majority of the households. This study supports the notion that urban land scarcity is not a limiting factor for home gardening. The paper suggests that this home gardening trend reignited during the Covid-19 lockdown needs to be supported by three means: promoting healthy lifestyles, connecting government officials with local home gardeners and local plans being supportive and appreciative of home gardening.

Self-image plays a major role in consumer behavior house purchase domain. Gender influences on self-image and house purchase is ambiguous and uncertain in the literature. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of gender moderation on the relationship between self-image and house purchasing intention. The quantitative research method was used for this study. Potential luxury housing buyers in Sri Lanka were used as a population of the study and a structured questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data. The sample size of the study is 100. Four hypotheses were developed for the study and those hypothesized were analysed using Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis. The findings reveal that actual self-image and house purchase intention have a significant positive relationship and there is no relationship between ideal self-image and house purchase intention. Further, the study failed to support that gender moderates the relationship between selfimage (actual and ideal) and house purchasing intention. The present findings of the study will be beneficial for real estate developers, real estate marketers/managers, and academia, relating to the house purchase intention in the luxury housing market.

Urban green spaces could bring cities and their inhabitants with vitality in terms of ecological, social, and economic benefits. Recognising and estimation of economic values of parks is important for their sound management and for justification of the current use over various alternative uses. Non recognition of values of the services of such green spaces may lead to unsound management and degradation resulting in depriving urban communities of those benefits. Viharamahadevi Urban Park is the oldest and largest park in Colombo which offers recreation and green space to the inhabitants and visitors of the city. The purpose of this study is to estimate the recreational value of the Park using Individual Travel Cost Method (ITCM). Visitors of Viharamahadevi Urban Park selected using purposive sampling method were interviewed with a structured questionnaire. Data on visitation frequencies, preferences for park characteristics and socio economic parameters were collected using face-to-face interviews. In order to cater for the data issues of the ITCM, a zero truncated negative binomial regression analysis was performed in estimating the demand function. Results indicate that household income and the enjoyment of the visitors significantly and positively determine the number of visits made by the people. The annual social welfare generated from the recreational value of the Viharamahadevi Park is LKR 55.7 billion. The estimated value will be able to provide significant guidance towards future park management decisions.

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