Abstract
The local governments have designated public places as shelters during or after a disaster in Japan. In this study, we conducted residents' attitude survey about emergency evacuation and sheltering behavior in Yokohama. The results of this questionnaire survey showed that residents would choose various public places as shelters. Some of them have not been designated by the municipal government. Almost of residents wanted to evacuate to a nearby site from their houses. The reasons for preferring a particular site were not only geographical location or facilities available at the site but also psychological reasons, such as their familiarity with the site. Furthermore, we conducted a multivariate analysis of the reasons why residents would select a particular place as a shelter and determined the characteristics of parks and municipal schools selected by many residents for evacuation and sheltering behavior. Moreover, the evaluation method of public place for refugees was suggested on the basis of this analysis.
