Policy Implications from Cases in Foreign Countries for Realizing Compact Cities

Abstract

Policy makers across the world are increasingly taking interest in the idea of the compact city. This article introduces two points about how to realize compact cities in Japan while learning relevant lessons from cases abroad. The first is to show the merits of the compact city as clearly as possible, especially in its effects on the local economy. A compact city facilitates a sustainable growth of local economy through streamlining local government finances, inducing more information exchange to produce urban creativity, and making use of the economy of density. The second point is to understand the compact city policy not as a pure urban policy but as an integrated land use policy, including farm lands. In Portland, integrated land use policies contributed to realizing a compact city, where a tax reduction on farm lands was simultaneously introduced with the Urban Growth Boundary. An interesting point here is that this combination of tax reduction and regulation resulted in more investments in farm lands, which reinforced competitiveness of the farm lands and eventually contributed to realizing a compact city.