How are building demolition sites controlled and influenced by local characteristics? This study investigates the relationship between building demolition sites and urban planning measure focusing on large housing estates in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Berlin. Based on literature review, field survey, and a series of quantitative analyses, following results are shown. First, building demolition sites generate various types of both public and private reutilized spaces. Second, the sites planned to be demolished as early as 2002 are utilized actively. Third, the sites expected to activate as functional open spaces are well controlled as either green spaces or functional open spaces.

This study examines the issues associated with municipal land use where the proportion of the urban control area in urban fringe areas is high and designated as part of the wide city planning area. Our analysis revealed that apart from the prefectural urban master plan's population frame, municipalities are developed and maintained based on the population frame of the municipal urban master plan. Moreover, in addition to the hubs designated by the prefectural urban master plan, the municipalities select their own individual hubs, and the local plans dictate the method of development. This can cause problems associated with sparsely populated area and conflicting land use regulations that relate to the promotion of agricultural land use in these areas.

Smart community has received a lot of attention as model district of decarbonizing society. However, requirement definition of smart community is not clear yet. In this paper, the definition of the smart community is discussed through Japanese case analysis. As a result, requirement definition of smart community has been organized into three categories of energy, social function, and information and communication technology. In the latter part of the paper, index of energy performance of smart community is proposed. These are the degree of attainment of net zero energy community, CO2 emission, cost, load ratio of electric power system, and self-consumption rate of the PV generation etc. Example of these evaluation is performed for a model smart community by simulation. In addition, the long-term change of the energy demand considering life stage change is revealed.

Child poverty is becoming a serious problem in Japan. As poverty causes many problems because of economic difficulties, it is necessary to detect it early and intervene with cooperation from relevant organizations. The purpose of this study is to identify patterns within child poverty interventions conducted by local municipalities in Tokyo, focusing on collaboration between appropriate organizations. By this research, new or existing rules that allow for the sharing of personal information of child can encourage collaboration with local municipalities and relevant organizations. Additionally, the study revealed that it is important to build an organizational structure that is easy to collaborate among relevant authorities in the future and to incorporate information that can be understood commonly.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the details of assessment formula for Business Improvement District (BID) intended to promote a local economy and community. All BIDs in New York City set the levy on property owners, while some BIDs in Seattle City require the levy on business owners. The calculation of the individual levy is based on the square footage of a lot, an assessed property value, a lot size, a building floor area, or gross retail sales. Some BIDs calculate it by using multiple assessment factors. In addition, the types of assessment formula depend on the neighborhood characteristics, and the levy of BIDs in a central area or business area tends to be calculated by an assessed value, a building floor area, or a lot size. On the hand, BIDs in a commercial area or residential area often use the square footage of a lot.

This study examines the roles and activities of Local Committees, which are legally defined neighborhood organizations involved in the formulation process of local plans in the city of Copenhagen. Our investigation revealed that Local Committee members are selected from citizens' organizations in a variety of specialized fields that are active in the neighborhood, which ensures that the system is fair and objective. Moreover, in the formulation of the local plan, the Local Committee holds civic meetings, then prepares and submits documents that summarize the opinion of the residents. This is accomplished before preparation of the draft of the local plan and during the public hearing period through discussions at the specialized branch organizations, with final decision made by the Local Committee. Based on our examination, we found that the Local Committee plays an important role by acting as a representative of public involvement in the local plan formulation process.

A web-based urban design communication tool named “My City Forecast” (http://mycityforecast.net), utilizing government-provided open data to enhance citizen–government cooperation, has been developed. This app has been implemented in 1670 cities in Japan, with the aim of enabling citizens to understand how their region (down to the app’s spatial resolution of 500-m2 cells) is going to change in the future up to 2040. In this study, we have conducted actual workshops with various stakeholders using My City Forecast in three cities such as Kurashiki, Gotsu and Nanto. Finally, we evaluated and compared those results.

"Kyu Yame Gun-Yakusho" in Yame Fukushima Preservation District is a large-scale wooden building built in the Meiji period, which NPO is attracting funds for and repairing by itself.The NPO, conducts this plan and runs some parts of the facilities, aiming that the building will become a park-like place of the traditional Yame town after the renovation is completed. This report shows the use state from the establishment of "Kyu Yame Gun-Yakusho" to June 2018.

The occurrence of unequal societies and a declining level of living satisfaction are regarded as problems caused by the rapid increase in the number of people who do not go out for activities. However, the relation between activities of daily life and the motivation of individuals and subjective satisfaction has not been clarified. In this research, we examined the measures to stimulate activity by grasping the factors that affect the life satisfaction and the attributes of activities that are not fully implemented, and that we are not able to carry out our activities with a desire, from the viewpoint of MM. Results show that some people have restricted activities in both mandatory activities and private activities such as hobbies. The home environment and local environment can be related to subjective satisfaction. In addition to evoking activities are improvement of hardware aspects and resolution of movement constraints, along with promotion of the activities themselves. Some approach to going out themselves might be necessary.

This research aims to clarify the relationship between resettlement process and community building after the typhoon disaster Yolanda in Tacloban, Philippines. The community involvement in resettlement process, the situation of physical and social environments in resettlement sites were analyzed though field work. 1) From the interview survey, it was found that community involvement was not conducted in housing design and site planning process. 2) From the interview and site survey, the relationships between common space, facilities and community activities were identified. 3) It was suggested that sweat equity and keeping free spaces could be useful in the resettlement process after the disaster.

A vacant house rate is 13.5%, the record-high value in the 2013 housing and land survey. Consequently, the utilization of the vacant house shows an expanse from the viewpoint of community planning in Tokushima. In this study, we clarify characteristics and problems about action to the vacant house of administrative and private sector in Tokushima.Problems of vacant house are a generic name of being too many vacant houses and secondary damage with there.We found that activity to generation control to the vacant house is weak when we compare the activity with the issue of vacant house. But the activity of private sector cannot but be one-sided to circulate the vacant house which occurred appropriately in the current legislation. Arranging the element and the relations that supplement the lacking domain are necessary to a group cooperates.

Recently, effective use of public facilities within the limited financial resources are highly discussed amongst the local authorities in Japan, because most areas are facing to the declining population and deteriorating local finance. Even outdoor swimming pools can only be used in the limited season, most of primary schools have own ones, and their maintenance costs are negatively affected to the finance. Under this situation, swimming pools can possibly be consolidated to utilize to the indoor pool. However, how we can consolidate/operate pools is an issue. The purpose of this study is to clarify consolidation and operation method for effective use of swimming pools at primary schools. The paper consider the consolidation and operation utilized new indoor pool and existing indoor pool, and public and private partnership. From the analysis, it is possible to reduce expenditure pertaining to maintenance and updating of swimming pools. However we should consider future demand of use of swimming pools and update the time of existing pool renewals.

This study examines cases where local plans are formulated at the discretion of the city of Copenhagen, Denmark, through an analysis of local plan documents. Our investigation revealed that local plans are formulated in the following four situations: (1) when municipal plans must be supplemented; (2) during large-scale project development; (3) when a clarification of planning permission standards is required; and (4) during the construction of public facilities. Furthermore, for case 1, local plans must be formulated regardless of plan size. Two primary purposes exist for their formulation: one is the mitigation of building regulations and changes in land use stipulated in the municipal plan, and the other is the formalization of details related to land use conformance in a development project application. Additionally, we found that local plans are formulated even on a small scale in cases 3 and 4.

This study clarified a formation process from a city planning-like point of view for the south seas Namba Station east sides that was next to the terminal station and formed the store accumulation ground without large-scale development.<br>In this area, flat development was not carried out and land readjustment project and the city planning road were planned, but it became non-enforcement and was the place that was formed without city planning-like technique being used. About the land prices, ways of the distribution of the street value were different in every town chome, and influence by the use or nonuse of the city planning appeared. Particularly, buildings in Nanbasennichimae crowded, and high street value and low street value were neighboring, because there were many an alleys and thin roads. As a result, distribution of characteristic land prices based on accessibility was seen and understood that it produced the situation that a store increased.

Infrastructures developed in the period of high economic growth in Japan have been decayed and facing for urgent renewal. To response to that, in the field of urban park system there is a plan to make a park longer sustained by fixing its utilities. On the other hand, it is crucial to consider administrative cost to keep and maintain not only parks but other infrastructure. This paper proposes sustainable measures for urban park system in terms of not only the cost but users demand for park system, analyzing the population data and the data of park maintenance plan in Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture. We successfully selected some of the parks which the city should abandon for the sake of public health.

In current Japan, low birthrate and aging advances, and the decline of the town begins to advance. In the local city, the low birthrate and aging has already become the big problem. In the developed residential area of the suburbs of downtown area particularly the single-family house residential area, the low birthrate and aging becomes no exception.The movement of the reproduction about the residential area of the suburbs of big city gradually begins, and many discussions are done about the method. The active inflection of the private enterprise is considered as one of the methods of the residential area reproduction. A limit is seen in doing residential area reproduction in administration and inhabitants on an economic aspect, a labor side, a know-how side. I think that many problems may be settled because a private enterprise is concerned with reproduction of the big city bedroom suburb in such situation. Therefore, about reproduction of the big city bedroom suburb, I decided to study conditions for a company to be concerned.

One of the problems that has become a social issue in recent years is the vacant house problem due to excessive supply of common housing. According to the results of housing and land statistics survey conducted in FY2010, the number of vacant houses in the common housing accounts for 4.71 million units, accounting for 58% of the total.This is also partly due to the fact that retirement will not proceed at common apartments where the prospect of utilization is not established. It is considered that grasping the location trends based on the new construction and retirement of such apartment buildings will help to cope with vacant house issues.Therefore, in this research, we investigate the location trend of the common housing and clarify the location and increase / decrease of the common housing. It shows the characteristics of the area and the relation between new construction and retirement.

The art-based community development project has been progressed nationwide since 1990s. The attempt to develop community have been made with the use of various social art festivals such as Daichi Art Festival in Niigata, Setouchi International Art Festival, Nara Machiya Art Festival, etc. We will look at the case of Nara and analyze the present condition of the art festival and its outcome in order to consider how the utilization plan ought to be and the future prospects of utilization of private space in Machiya. This paper, we will overview the current practice cases of utilization of Nara Machiya. Second, we will present a brief description of the current state of the Machiya utilization plan designed by Nara prefecture. Third, the other practice cases of community development will be analyzed. Finally, we will propose the way planning of the utilization of Machiya for the community development ought to be in the future.

In an effort to prevent sex crimes against children and women, Japanese national police and local municipalities are initiating various crime prevention measures focusing on "threat incidents". Although threat incidents are generally regarded as precursors to sex crimes, it has not been empirically determined whether threat incidents raise the risk of future sex crimes. Using the Knox method, this study examines the spatiotemporal relationship between threat incidents and sex crimes against children and women. The results are based on the analysis of 1,722 sex crimes and 12,064 threat incidents that occurred from 2014 to 2016 in Tokyo. A spatiotemporal relationship was found only between threat incidents and sex crimes committed against children. The degree to which the risk of a sex crime increased was dependent upon the type of threat incident. Based on these results, we discuss the possibility of threat incidents as the leading indicator of future sex crimes.

Deemed as a panacea of democracy disenchantment, Participatory Budgeting (PB) becomes a noteworthy mechanism that enables the common public to voice their rights in allocating public expenditures. Many studies have investigated PB proliferation by using different perspectives, yet are not able to provide a complete evaluation that brings about more comprehensive understanding. Thus, this study utilized four dimensions of PB in evaluating the Musrenbang-a PB practice in Indonesia-by taking a case of Batu City Government. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches within an exploratory sequential mixed methods design were employed to collect data through in-depth interview, nonparticipant observation, documentation, questionnaire, as well as assessment and evaluation sheets. The result disclosed that in general, the Batu City Government implemented the Musrenbang in a minimal arrangement. Within the dimension of financial/budgetary, the Musrenbang did not have adequate debated resources; specific allocation; and taxation policies. The evaluation of the participatory dimension comprising the subdimensions of citizen participation and local government participation revealed that the Musrenbang had not represented an advanced participatory practice yet. This encompassed variables of participation form; decision maker; participation of the excluded; monitoring and control; information sharing and dissemination; project completion; and legislative role. Furthermore, the Musrenbang did not pay much attention to intramunicipal decentralization; ruralization; and investment within the spatial/territorial dimension. A preferable result came from the normative/legal judicial dimension in which adequate laws and regulations had been stipulated to institutionalize the Musrenbang in a framework of national planning and budgeting.

Road-side container gardens in high-density districts in Japanese urban areas provide rich and visible greenery for residents and visitors. Here, we analyzed influence of urban redevelopment projects on container gardening activities in the case study areas in Adachi and Arakawa wards, Tokyo. We found that container gardening activities may not shrink after the project implementation. We also analyzed relationships among container gardening, social capital and the evaluation for the visible features of roads with container gardens. Results indicated that container gardening can contribute to social capital development at nationhood levels, but its continuity may at risk since younger generations have not involved in gardening activities and related communications.

Nagasaki is a city which has many sloped urban areas, and it has implemented various unique programs of urban regeneration ahead of other cities in Japan. However, it faces the need for a paradigm shift in the era of decreasing population and aging society. In this study, planning policies and measures for sloped areas were reviewed and case studies were conducted for Ebira district and Iwasemichi-Tategami district that are designated as targeted districts in the city's regeneration project. Through the research, current status of the sloped areas and their treatment in the city's Location Normalization Plan is clarified.

This paper shows the result of time series analysis of vehicle to vehicle accidents in cities in Kanagawa prefecture occurred between 2007 and 2017. In this analysis, we focused on times series trend and seasonal variation of traffic accidents. The accident risk in each city was separated into trends and seasonal components with state space model, and cities were classified based on these trends and seasonal variations. The results of this analysis were as follows. (1) The number of traffic accidents was decreasing monotonously in long-term but slightly increased in 2017. (2) The risk of traffic accidents increased in the latter half of the year in most cities except for Kamakura city, where it increased a lot in summer because of its regional characteristic as a resort area.

In recent years, schools are regarded as important to securing functions of evacuation centers due to the effects of frequent disasters, and establishment of an independent energy system at school facilities is required because energy security contributes greatly to evacuation living. However, in addition to maintaining evacuation facility functions at school facilities, it is not clear how to construct an energy system that takes environmental considerations and fiscal burdens into account. Therefore, this research aims to clarify the way of securing the functions of evacuation centers in schools and constructing energy systems considering normal times. First, we clarify the problems of shelters and grasp the energy demand for maintenance of evacuation facilities. Then, the energy system construction corresponding to the function maintenance level and the effect that the introduced system gives at normal times were clarified from the viewpoint of CO&#8322; reduction effect, energy saving, economic efficiency.

After the East Japan Great Earthquake, the demand of decentralized energy system is dramatically increased from the disaster prevention point. At the same time, the government recommends local authorities to make the Urban Renovation and Compact City Plan to make Compact-City-Network. Even the potential of introducing decentralized energy system into the city is expected to go up by concentrating the energy demands into the city by the Urban Renovation and Compact City Plan, the feasibility is unclear. The purpose of this study is to clarify the potential of introducing decentralized energy system in the suburbs along with the Urban Renovation and Compact City Plan. The paper firstly discusses the policy of energy infrastructure and the way of making the Urban Renovation and Compact City in Kobe city, followed by an analysis of the effectiveness of introducing decentralized energy system along with the Urban Renovation and Compact City to clarify the feasibility of that.

The severe traffic congestion by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 and the heaviest snowfall in 2014 caused delayed recovery work. Those disasters reminded us of importance of early restored of road traffic. Recently, governments and local governments have reformed the law and plans for road traffic in disasters. The purpose of this study is to clarify the state of legal system of road traffic in a major disaster. The paper firstly reviews general legal system on road traffic in disaster, followed by reviews legal system on road traffic in Tokyo near-field earthquake. From these reviews, this paper proposed to do detailed traffic control in disaster and clarify the base of recovery work in central downtown area.

The average family size is shrinking in Japan due to the decreasing birthrate and aging population. It is getting difficult to look after children and care for the elderly "in nuclear family units". For this reason, "multi-generational housing development" is drawing attention. This study aimed to discover the actual progress of "multi-generational housing development" and the actual state of interaction between residents, and subsequently to sort out outstanding issues. Results showed that communications between different generations could not gain enough momentum simply from plans to construct houses for the elderly and those for general residents side by side. The study also found that approaches not only from the aspect of hardware, such as the arrangement of facilities for interaction but also from the aspect of software, such as the planning of events to promote interaction, would work effectively. By the way, it turned out that interaction would be facilitated under certain conditions.

This paper focuses on the handling of depopulating neighborhoods in the revision of zoning code in industrial cities located in Rust Belt. As a case study, we examined the revision of the zoning code and the development of the Unified Development Ordinance in Buffalo, NY. City of Buffalo intended to set Urban Interim Use for neighborhoods with a large percentage of vacant properties. It was intended to limit new (permanent) development to some extent while recommending tentative land use. In the final plan, Urban Interim Use was withdrawn due to the strong opposition of the residents. However, in some areas, zoning was changed from General Residential to Single-Family Residential instead. This limits the direction of future development while utilizing the existing zoning code type, and the city government's initial aim was partly realized.

This study aims to understand how the lifestyle of people who live in Takashimadaira housing complex have changed. To this end, the changes of advertisers of the local information magazines called Takashimadaira Benri-cho were examined. As a result, changes in advertisers reflected changes in residents' lifestyles, such as aging and changes in family composition.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concepts and features of the riverside greenbelts plan that was made in post-war period is some cities (Maebashi, Toyama, Hiroshima, Kure, Ube, Kagoshima, and Tokushima) in Japan. It is known that Hiroshima developed riverside greenbelt plan in post-war period as a core project as with 100-meter-rwide street and central park projects in order to establish a beautiful river city, but in other cities the details of the greenbelts plan has not been clarified yet. In this paper, each riverside greenbelt plan was characterized in terms of their layout plan, use and scale. Then, it was clarified that the riverside greenbelt was thought important for urban beauty in each city as same as Hiroshima by reviewing not only official documents but also journals and newspapers at post-war period.

About four years have passed since the establishment of the “Location Normalization Plan” system in Japan, and municipalities throughout the country has formulated and published the plan. This study is intended to analyze the actual situation of the process of formulating the “Location Normalization Plan” through focusing on the relevance of the intention of the local government, contents of the publicly proposed draft plan, and the points of discussion perceived through the citizens’ opinions and the responses from the local government. In conclusion, it became obvious that different municipalities utilize the system for different purposes, that disagreement in recognition concerning some specific issues between citizens and local governments remain with high probability, and that there are several obstacles to link the unique contents of the plan to the effective spatial planning system.