Towards Sustainable Urbanization in New Cities: Social Acceptance and Preferences of Agricultural and Solar Energy Systems

Social acceptance of end users is indispensable for the implementation of agricultural and solar energy systems to create a more sustainable and productive residential building sector. Thus, the main aim of this study is to investigate the social acceptance level of the two systems and the implementation preferences of Egyptian end users, i.e., residents, in relation to their different sociocultural backgrounds. Given that most of the construction in Egypt is taking place in new cities, the acceptance of such systems strongly relates to societal implications for urban sustainability. An online survey was therefore disseminated to the residents of new cities in the Greater Cairo Region in Egypt (n=274). A contingency analysis was conducted using the SPSS tool, calculating the Chi-squared and Fisher tests to identify significant associations between the variables. Results indicated a high level of social acceptance of both the agricultural (71%) and solar energy (64%) systems. The attitude of residents towards the systems and their experience using them were the variables exhibiting the highest association with social acceptance of agricultural systems (p<0.001 for attitude and experience) and solar energy systems (p=0.04 for attitude and p=0.002 for experience). The most preferred system types were the horizontal planters on hand railings and roof-mounted photovoltaics. Responses showed that production was the main aim for agricultural systems, while economic returns were the main aim for solar systems. However, both systems faced the same barriers, especially in relation to economic barriers. Out of the 12 sociocultural variables tested, respondents’ age had the most significant impact on the implementation preferences of both systems followed by gender, residence type, and access to shared facilities. Our study addressed a knowledge gap by comparing the two systems to identify the common or different reasons behind the disparity between their high theoretical potential versus low on-ground implementation. Future research could investigate other underlying factors behind social acceptance beyond the analyzed sociocultural aspects and tackle the types of each system in detail.