A Kano–IS Model for the Sustainable Renovation of Living Environments in Rural Settlements in China

By 2020, there will be 2.36 million natural villages in China, with more than 500 million people living in them. Although China’s 2018 “National Rural Revitalization Strategy” has clarified the importance of the rural environment, the sustainability of living environments in rural settlements is generally ignored. However, current renovation work is implemented as per the same set of standards and is not sufficient to reach the highest satisfaction levels and sustainable development because the optimal renovation indicators are not selected according to local conditions. To address these issues, this work carried out a series of literature reviews and expert interviews to propose indicators applicable to the sustainable renovation of living environments in rural settlements in China. The questionnaire survey was conducted in a typical Chinese village in order to verify the feasibility of this decision model. Furthermore, the Kano model was organically combined with the importance–satisfaction (IS) model from the villagers’ point of view to establish a model analyzing the optimal indicators of the sustainable renovation. The results show that this model determines the priority of elements that need to be improved or maintained, based on which village administrators can make better management decisions and which government managers can invest limited government resources in key sectors, thus creating sustainable living environments in rural settlements and enhancing the satisfaction of villagers. It is suggested that the opinions of village administrators and planners be considered to optimize this model further.