This study aims to clarify the condition of the central area in absorbed city by the merger of municipalities, and to consider the problem. Then, by the questionnaire survey of national wide scale, we understand the condition of the central area at the absorbed city and the execution condition of the projects planned by old plan. Moreover, we execute the hearing investigation for five cities where the city accumulation is high.<br>As a result, we clarify that many central area declined in the absorbed city, that there are a lot of municipalities that grope for the activation strategy counting on old plan to lose one's validity, that there are municipality that plan the urban regeneration improvement plan as substitution of old plan, and that there are a lot of municipalities from which the cooperation between the administration and private organization is not attempted after merger of municipalities.

In recent years, rapidly growing urban populations and increasing energy consumption have drawn much attention around the world. China has experienced enormous growth in its energy markets over the last two decades, fuelled by the sustained growth of its economy. In this study we use a regression model of the rail freight transportation energy to analyze and evaluate the national land and energy policy in China. Under the national land and energy policy this study assumes some kinds of scenarios to predict the future of rail freight transportation. The results of the simulation show that rail freight transportation will increase despite national strategy aimed to develop the economy of the Western region. Conversely, under metropolitan planning policy rail freight transportation will decrease. In addition, from the result of the simulation of the energy policy we can see that coal-related factor is important factor because it has an influence on rail freight.

The author examined the officer's reports to the planning committees of Cardiff City, UK. This report was about the outline planning application for the International Sports Village including out-of-centre large-scale stores. Cardiff City decided that the applicant failed to satisfy the needs test and the sequential approach. Cardiff City also assessed that the impact of the proposed retail developments on existing centres could be greater than those suggested by the applicant. However, Cardiff City decided that the retail components of these schemes were an integral part of large package with many benefits and supported the regeneration of a large derelict area of Cardiff Bay. Therefore, Cardiff City granted planning permissions subject to the imposition of appropriate planning conditions including investments in transport infrastructure and restriction of the range of goods sold.

This paper provides an assessment for the living environment of "villages inside city" by conducting questionnaire surveys in some typical cities among western areas, middle areas as well as coastal areas in China. The questionnaire surveys are mainly focus on the actual situations of the physical environment related to urban planning field instead of other aspects. Based on the surveys, we found that as to those "villages inside city", both the rank of the locations and the rank of the relationships between villagers is negatively related with the rank of the conditions of living environment. The results of this paper show the bad conditions of living environment in "villages inside city" and the very necessity of improving those conditions.

We analyzed the side effects in period of urban shrinking. Using the DEMATEL method, a quantitative relationship between the interactions of the side effects in the central area is showed. The results are as follows. 1) Existing literatures are reviewed for the positioning of this study. We examined the main effects and side effects in period of urban shrinking, and organized interactive relationship. A lot of side effects continue to ripple from daytime and night-time population growth. 2) To capture an objective source of side effect, we analyzed the factor analysis using the DEMATEL method. As a result, preference policies such as "regulation of land use," "re-relocation of public facilities," "development of public transport networks" are shown.

Recently, the influence on the global environment brought about by the rapid industrialization and urbanization in China has been increasingly attracting attentions around the world. Having realized the problem, Chinese government is now developing different types of urban environmental policies. Stating from 1972, up to now, the development of urban environmental protection in China can be described by three movements: creating "environmental Model Cities", "Ecocities", and "Low-carbon Cities". This paper, after reviewing the general picture of their policies and practices, introduces the above three movements especially their policies and practices, aiming to attract more attentions from Japan, who has many good experiences in the field of urban environmental management.

According to official statistics, there are 44,500 volunteer groups for crime prevention which consist of 2.7 million members in Japan. Most of the groups are neighborhood associations mainly made up of elderly people and PTAs mainly made up of child-raising mothers. The cooperation between these two bodies is rather difficult because they have respective objectives.<br>In this paper, we analyze a questionnaire for volunteer groups conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and try to get useful information for the cooperation between the two bodies. In conclusion, we suggested their broadening the purpose of activities to the communication among children, their parents and elderly people who watch out for children.

This study conducted qualitative analysis of the problem-solving process of homeless people's association through collective behavior. Voluntary participation of homeless people with various backgrounds to informal conversation at weekly food serving enables extraction of information with which core members can propose feasible and acceptable solutions. The necessary information for homeless life in urban environment is extracted appropriately depending on social positions in the community structure and stages of problem solving. This mechanism enables it for the association to maintains its adaptive activities without rational motivation of all members. This result can be applied to social vulnerable community in urban city to build empowerment and produce steady activities.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relation between residential distribution and locations of facilities that replace the functions of houses in terms of spatio-temporal behavior of people. Among the functions, meal was focused on. In terms of both energy and cost, the study compared the case that residents use facilities and the case that they do not, and areas where it is advantageous to use the facilities were determined. The results of analysis on the population composition in and out of the areas show that the proportion of single households was slightly higher than other households in the areas, and that the proportion of the population aged 29-15 in the areas was slightly higher than the population of the other generations.