“Doushu” Prefecture Systems are discussed for long times since 1950s, Now the systems are discussed in the company of decentralization of Governments, and are proposed by Osaka Local Governments and the others in Kansai Region. But the systems are not studied from the viewpoints of major theme in the 21^st Century. One of the major themes is considered as “Management”.

Established by Osaka City in 2004, the Robot Laboratory is a center set up to encourage cluster developments within the robotics industry.

The ‘RooBo’ that the Robot Laboratory serves as a secretariat is an exchange group comprising 400 member-companies.

This paper, which is based on interviews with the member companies, introduces the initiatives implemented by Osaka City, and analyzes how the robotics industry is shaping up for the future and in what form the encouragement to the robotics industry should be.

This paper makes an in-depth evaluation of the Robot Laboratory's activities such as, business matching, structuring of developmental consortiums, and demonstrations/experiments conducted by these consortiums. By reinforcing such activities, we believe that next-generation robots, those for used at home and in society at large, will be achieved in the near future.

In this paper, a policy to be areas sustainable from the point of keeping population is observed. The historical areas of Kyoto and Shiga in Japan are considered and prove their special problem which is different form around Tokyo.

For this purpose, the current landscape policy of Kyoto City is mainly investigated, and the several movements that emerged in Shiga prefecture are considered. A new landscape policy was enforced in Kyoto City in September 2007, and it featured landscape ordinance and design code of buildings. A design code was enforced not only on office buildings and mansions but also on the personal property of individuals. It was probably the first policy of its kind, and this led to confusion between construction companies and constructors. Although several groups have initiated movements concerning this policy and the problems related to it, this paper delves upon only one group. In Shiga prefecture, Hikone City is authorized by Rekisi-Machidukuri-Law, and several movements have emerged in Otsu City.

Finally, similar problems observed in both Kyoto and Shiga are pointed out.

The process for formulating a river management program in Japan has greatly changed. In 1997, the River Act was amended and, shifting from the conventional purpose of flood-control and irrigation, a comprehensive river management program was drawn up with the purpose of flood control, irrigation and environmental conservation. Here, for the first time, participation by residents was introduced, thereby reflecting their opinions. In the Kansai area, the Revised River Act was applied for the Yodogawa water system, and the Yodogawa Water Basin Council, consisting of academic experts and publicly recruited residents was established by the government and a Yodogawa water management program was formulated. However, during the formulating process, the four governors of Mie, Shiga, Kyoto and Osaka prefectures expressed their objections to the Daido dam construction in Shiga prefecture from the standpoint that flood prevention by river improvement should be prioritized over dam construction. On the other hand, the pro-Daido dam group insisted that the government complete construction of the dam. Consequently, the once simple interests of upper reaches and lower reaches residents, have developed into complex ones involving the project implementing body i.e. the national government, and the beneficiaries i.e. prefectures, municipalities, and local residents, resulting in a conflict concerning eliciting of an agreement. Based on such experience, I will discuss how to adjust interests regarding river management programs and the direction of local governments in the future.

The number of elderly and physically challenged people who fall down in buses is increasing in Japan. Therefore, we have used non-slippery and ecological flooring composed of quartz in a bus, since fiscal year 2004. Moreover, customers and bus companies were made to participate in the functional evaluation of the flooring. In fiscal years 2006 and 2007, we laid the new flooring in the buses of three bus companies under three conditions: non-rainy, rainy, and snowy. In each condition, about 80% of the customers gave a high evaluation for the non-slip function of the material. Moreover, we are able to obtain a high evaluation for the design and the compatibility of their shoes with the material. Nowadays, in the process of developing non-step buses, the 0.52 CSR value is used as a standard, in accordance with the rule of the Japan Auto-Body Industries Association, Inc. However, in this research, we introduced the best CSR value as flooring for universally designed buses. We recognized the CSR for non-step buses as 0.566. This value will be useful to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport in its formulation of a new floor standard in the process of developing non-step buses.

Today, when national land structures are changing, “regional planning” has become a political problem. In order to promote integrated community improvement across administrative boundaries, it is important that the municipalities with prefectural boundaries promote strategic planning.

This study considered the road improvement plan of a municipality with a prefectural boundary from the viewpoint of the broadening of administrative districts. We consider the viewpoint of arterial road improvement in the future through the awareness survey provided to administration officials. Moreover, we defined “blockade” and addressed the situation of blockades in each municipality.

For a long time, “well-balanced land development” was the core idea of the National Land Comprehensive Development Plan. It is essential to understand this plan in order to clarify the relationship between the idea and the plan.

This paper aims to verify the following two hypotheses about the change in political interest at the government level over this idea.

1）In political interest at the government level, it may be comparatively recently that this idea came to be recognized as “the core idea of the National Land Comprehensive Development Plan”. 2）This idea may have changed from “the core idea of the plan” to “the core idea beyond the plan”.

This paper arrived at the following conclusions. 1）It may be said that hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2 are proper together. 2）Hypothesis 1 was formulated in the latter half of the 1980s（the development period of the fourth National Land Comprehensive Development Plan）. On the other hand, hypothesis 2 was formulated in the latter half of the 1980s or the first half of the 1990s.