a b s t r a c tThis paper provides an assessment of residential satisfaction of newly designed public low-cost housing dwellers of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with forty-five variables grouped into five components -dwelling unit features, dwelling unit support services, public facilities, social environment and neighbourhood facilities. Findings from the study indicate that the residents are moderately satisfied with dwelling unit support services, followed by public and neighbourhood facilities than dwelling unit features and social environment, which have higher percentage of respondents with low level of satisfaction. Residential satisfaction index has high positive correlations with dwelling unit features, social environment, support services and public facilities, and low positive correlation with neighbourhood facilities. Socio-economic attributes of the residents such as age, family size, working wives, previous residence are negatively correlated with residential satisfaction, whereas residents' race, employment type, floor level and length of residency are positively correlated with residential satisfaction. A Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) model has been estimated for the study and the model provides 76% explanations to determine residential satisfaction with ten predictor variables. The high beta coefficients of the model suggest that residential satisfaction of public low-cost housing can be enhanced through improving the management of security control, perimeter roads, cleanliness of garbage house and garbage collection, by the Local authority (KLCH). Moderate beta coefficient values of the model suggest that improvement of housing design is necessary to enhance residents' satisfaction with the predictor variables such as dry area, bedroom-1, dinning space, socket points and bedroom-3. From socio-economic analysis, it was found that the size of existing low-cost unit does not satisfy the needs of 29.4% inhabitants with large (6þ) families and high bedroom occupancy rates (2.5). Furthermore, the location of future low-cost housing estates should also consider their closeness to the shopping centres. Public agencies for low-cost housing should pay proper attention to the management of support and public facilities to enhance residential satisfaction of the inhabitants and also adopt a policy to build different sizes of units to cater the needs of residents with large families in order to enhance quality of life of the low-income urban community in the country.

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Residential satisfaction, defined as the feeling of contentment when one has or achieves what one needs or desires in a house, is an important indicator and planners, architects, developers and policy makers use it in a number of ways. There are three theories – housing needs theory, housing deficit theory and psychological construct theory, and most empirical studies have used these theories or a combination of these theories in their research design. A number of variables representing housing and neighbourhood characteristics, individuals‘ socio-demographic attributes as well as their perceptions of housing and neighbourhood conditions have been analysed in most empirical studies what stand to indicate that further studies are required until a general theory of residential satisfaction/ dissatisfaction emerges. Also, a host of variables belonging to housing and its environment including the sociodemographic attributes of residents exert significant influences on the level of residential satisfaction/dissatisfaction which is however, culture and value specific indicating that further studies on residential satisfaction/dissatisfaction can be undertaken on case specific context to gude public policies on housing.

Social housing in Malaysia is provided through the public and private sectors. Recently, the Selangor Zakat Board (SZB) has started to provide social housing in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. Up to 2007, a total of 906 units have been delivered under its different programmes. This paper evaluates these programmes by adopting the housing satisfaction model which is currently used as a customer satisfaction tool for public/private housing in many local governments in the UK and USA. The main purpose of this paper is to identify the types of housing programmes adopted by SZB and examine beneficiaries' housing satisfaction in each programme on a comparative plane. In order to examine housing satisfaction, five objective components of satisfaction-housing unit features, housing unit support services, the social environment, public facilities and neighbourhood facilities-were analysed through beneficiaries' levels of satisfaction which were measured by applying a Likert scale. The findings of the paper indicate that SZB has been successful in providing a moderate level of satisfaction with the housing unit. However, the existence of variable levels of satisfaction with other components implies that there is still scope to enhance residents' satisfaction with those components.

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