A city to subsist for the longest time

From a viewpoint of the environmental balance in a local scale

Abstract

In future, with the increasing importance of sustainability and progress of the decentralization, independence in environmental asset will become an issue for the local government. A city that is able to balance human activity and environmental asset in particular area may have a possibility to be “a city to subsist for the longest time”. This study is made to quantitatively indicate the cities' present state and potential improvement of environmental balance, with the Ecological Footprint. The object is local central cities. As a result, it is revealed that most cities could not achieve the complete environmental balance. In addition, it is shown that some cities are able to be “a city to subsist for the longest time” by environmental load reduction measure in a view point of self-sufficient.