On May 17, 2015 in Osaka City, a referendum was held asking whether voters approved of the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards.” Approximately one month before that, a total of 39 explanation meetings for Osaka citizens were held regarding this agreement, but there has been no systematic verification of the explanation content by the city side throughout all of the meetings. Therefore, for this research text analysis was conducted focusing on the greeting by the secretariat, the explanation by the secretariat, and the explanation by the mayor at the explanation meetings, and it was verified whether the city side provided appropriate explanations to the citizens. As a result, it was found that “the fact that Osaka City will be abolished if the referendum passes,” which absolutely had to be communicated to the residents, was not explained even once to the citizens in the spoken explanations by the secretariat and Mayor. Regarding the finances of special wards, it was found that both the secretariat and the mayor explained, based on long-term fiscal estimates not listed in the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards,” that fiscal management can definitely be carried out, and new resident services are also possible. The Mayor used the term “Osaka Metropolis Plan” a total of 1,626 times. In addition, it was found that four types of false explanations were given by the Mayor in the explanatory pamphlet, i.e., that the pamphlet is the Agreement to Establish Special Wards, that the pamphlet was approved by the assemblies of both Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City, that this is the only public document, and that it has been checked by the national government. When an investigation was conducted of resemblances between the explanation by the secretariat, the explanation by the Mayor, and the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards,” it was found that there was considerable resemblance in terms of frequency of terms used between the explanation by the secretariat and the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards,” but there was no resemblance between these and the explanation by the Mayor. Furthermore the explanation by the Mayor changed over the course of the 39 explanations, but it did not come to resemble the explanation by the secretariat or the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards.”

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As a countermeasure for traffic congestion during the commuting time-period, the Transportation Demand Management (TDM) measures are implemented and lasted for nearly one quarter of a century in Toyota City. The practice organization has played a very important role for continuously implementing the measures during this process. This paper examines the important role of the practice organization after reviewing the history of the TDM measures in Toyota City. It is found that the existence of the practice organization, the implement of social experiments and enlightening activities to related offices can ensure the realization and continue of the TDM activities of private organizations. This paper also examines the future tasks for implementing TDM measures and summarizes 3 key points to continuous implement of the measures for the practice organization, including moderate operation, hierarchization of participants and flexible reorganization. Based on the findings above, we concluded that the continuous existence of the execution organization is crucial for continuously implementing the TDM measures.

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Maintenance of local infrastructure is required to shift from quantitative expansion to qualitative one due to derived from the changes of our society such as stagnation or decreasing of the population and aging. In addition, it is getting more difficult to communicate with local community because of such factors, composition with other measures and expectation to collaborate with local community. On the other hand, it is getting more difficult to compile opinions from local community because of diversification of the sense of values and degradation of the sense of belonging of the community. It is discussed suggestions for consensus building under the situations above as a help. One suggestion is to interpret this process as the model consisting of four communication forms. Another is to imply it to meet a factor which deliberation is established. Afterwards, it is attempted to read and understand the process of communication towards consensus building by using examples in the book called “Recipes of community transport” as the monograph of the process for consensus building in local transport policy.

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Japan was heavily damaged by Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011. At same time, public transportation systems were also damaged. Although other public transportation systems required several years for the restoration, Local Bus routes were restored at the very beginning. Local Bus greatly contributed to the recovery of the disaster-stricken areas. The post-disaster restoration of Local Bus is investigated in this study. We interviewed Local Bus Actors (local bus companies, bus associations, journalist, academic experts, local governments, NPO, etc.) in Miyagi prefecture and Iwate prefecture. In this paper, we report the interview results based on the responses of local bus staffs in Ofunato area, Iwate prefecture.

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In this study, we consider folkloric fact in the stories of kappa in order to research the basis of Japanese subconscious against civil engineering. Some of the stories are as follows. Dolls made of wood and soil to construct bridges were thrown away into river and turned into kappa. (Dolls are usually interpreted in Japanese folklore as objects which take sins or unclearness from people.) As premise of the discussion, we review studies of civil engineers in folklore, and it is indicated that civil engineers are considered to be consisted by non-farmer such as special worker, vagabond, and discriminated people. Also it is indicated that the folkloric fact that civil engineers called “kawaramono”, “hinin” and “kurokuwa” who performed public works based at riverside, could be the basis of the kappa stories. Therefore, it is suggested that the stories of kappa represent the existence of discriminative norm against civil engineers as unclear. This discriminative norm could be connected at a fundamental level with the subconscious regarding civil engineering as unclear in the present day.

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Spanish philosopher, Ortega, defined the mass mans as people without any particular desire to themselves, and criticized their remarkable appearance in modern society caused various social problems. In practice, it is often said in Japan that the mass mans, who are easily influenced by the public opinion, causes the populism in politics. In this research, we focus on the vote, which is the direct method for citizens to relate the politics, and survey the relevance of the vulgarity of the mass mans and voting behavior with a Web questionnaire. As results, it is suggested that self-closed people tends to be indifferent to election itself, and arrogant people tends not to think over, and to put much emphasis on the peripheral information such as popularity of candidates, the evaluation in mass media and, especially, the flippant criteria of the degree how the candidates are amusing for them.

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Although decades have passed after first warning of epicentral earthquake under Tokyo metropolitan area, specific measures to the disaster are still to be carried out. Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, preliminary discussion of making a backup system in Kansai area for the capital function began, while full-scale debate has not been started. In this feasibility study, several areas, including the old relocation candidate sites, recent sub-capital concepts and others, were investigated as capital function backup location. The followings were explained as primary concepts: First, in the case of complete relocation, it is important to select an alternate site with lower probability of malfunction. Second, in the case of backup, it is more important not to suffer from earthquake in short period. This study contains research of earthquake disaster risk degree, probability study of simultaneous malfunction with Tokyo metropolitan area, consideration to utilization of the existing urban function, and examination of accessibility to nationwide. As a result, it was found that Gifu-Aichi area, that is one of the old candidate sites, and the mid-west part of Kansai Science City are suitable for complete relocation．And it was found that they are also suitable for partial relocation of the capital functions without mutual relationship. In addition, it was found that the mid-west part of Kansai Science City is appropriate for the backup destination. Furthermore, if relaxing some of the conditions, Osaka International Airport, Expo Memorial Park, Tochigi-Fukushima area, and the west part of Mie-Kio area are also found to be a backup location.

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The Tozai Subway Line is going to be inaugurated in Sendai-shi in 2015, and the city planning along the line is active. In 2013, Tohoku Institute of Technology concluded the agreement about city planning with Sendai City. An aim of this study is to evaluate effects of the participation of inhabitants and the university students on the production of town walk map around the station. We analyzed effects to the local government and the university by investigating the process of the workshop of the town walk map. And we analyzed the evaluation of inhabitants and students with the questionary survey data. Finally we held a meeting and inspected evaluation results.

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Activities of shopping district cooperatives are often supported by administrative measures and to make future measures more effective, it is important to analyze the process of those activities. Nara Mochiidono shopping district is well known for its success in the construction and the management of the challenge shop “Yume CUBE”. Some people argue that “Yume CUBE” played a significant role in solving regional problems such as an increase in the number of shop vacancies, lack of successors and a decrease in the number of pedestrians. In Organizational Theory, formal aspects (official position etc.) co-exist with informal aspects (interpersonal chemistry etc.) and interact with each other when completing the “cooperation” of an organization. In this article, we demonstrate the roles of Informal Organizations using the “Yume CUBE” project as an example. Tacit rules, manners, understandings and values are formed among individuals in an organization according to Informal Organizations they share. We coined these collectively as “shared deliverables”. For an organization to work well, it must have attractive “incentives” for members to participate. And those incentives are usually provided through Informal Organizations. We found that this also applies to Nara Mochiidono. Consequently, it seems likely that offering incentives through Informal Organizations resulted in the creation of shared values among members of shopping district cooperative.

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In Japan, we have had such extremely high risk of natural disasters that construction firms have been playing important roles, not only in infrastructure management, but also in disaster prevention and economic development for our society. However, due to the recent impoverishment of the industry which afterward may cause lowering the quality level of the constructions, there has appeared to be an argument about how we redesign the tendering and contracting system. This study, reviewing the history of Western contracting system for public works, reveals a fundamental direction to the future tendering and contracting system with a suggestion.

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Recently concerning with the regional revitalization and the local problem solution, “civic pride”, which was born in the United Kingdom in the 18th century, attracts attention on the sight of public space design and community development. Referring to practice of domestic and foreign variety of social studies education, our group research the significance and education method for cultivating the civic pride for applying new style regional education of elementary school. The Civic pride is defined as self-confidence and attachment for the hometown, and positive mindset for participation the improvement it. In this research, the role of the regional education program based on the town watching in the elementary school was observed as an action research, and its mechanism is clarified. Specifically, in the periods for social studies education and integrated study of the Hiyoshi-higashi elementary school’s fourth grader in Kumamoto City, the series of program such as the town exploration, map for town watching and exchange meeting, are practiced and inspected about education method and materials. As a result, the process, which students obtain the local identity as his own, and they cooperated for making the story about it by the workshop method was revealed. And, it is clarified that the process which students understand about local identity and the membership in the community is important for cultivating the civic pride.

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By focusing on the variety of the shopping districts, diversity indices were calculated in terms of industrial classification or commodity classification. And the indices were compared with the number of stores in this study. As a result, it was found that the scale or diversity tendencies in common local shopping areas are clearly different from Aeon Malls. Each of Aeon Malls has more stores in number than a common local shopping area. The large malls are not composed for the purpose of increasing the overall diversity, which are specialized in restaurants and product sales. It was found that merchandise stores are focus on dealing with clothes, and the diversity of the items was relatively lower. Some vibrant commercial avenues in the selection of 77 vibrant shopping streets have intermediate trends of both the malls and the local shopping area. And the avenues are closer to Aeon Malls than the other shopping streets. Though other malls except Aeon Malls are not so different from local shopping areas from a viewpoint of the scale or diversity, it was found that their diversities of commodity classification are less than industrial classification. There is a strong trend and tend to specialize in specific products compared to the local shopping areas.

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An interesting question is whether policy and practical studies can clarify the various uses of techniques to change the quality of relationship between people and their environment. This study focuses on such techniques, using an approach based in clinical psychology. A case where the author used support organizations is introduced to help clarify these techniques for changing the relationships between people and their social environment. Regarding this case, we consider the effects (until now) of support structures when using an approach based in clinical psychology and centered on social health. In addition, for the purpose of extending the support giver from the organization to the social community, the use of a social health approach centered on clinical psychology towards social support networks was examined. Some effects related to these characteristics were assumed and then interpreted. Further, the possibility of using methods related to the use of clinical psychology in community support networks was investigated.

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