The objective of this study is to analyze the spatial conditions around the terraced paddy fields from the visitor's point of view, in order to gaining the inputs useful for improving the conditions. The 11 sites of the Kinki district among the 134 sites, which had been chosen nation-wide as the most beautiful terraced landscape, were investigated into scale, topography, distribution of roads and buildings, visibility, circulation, accessibility, and availability of information for visitors. The result shows several spatial problems, such as difficulties of public access, shortage of parking spaces and bathrooms, and trespass of visitors to the paddy field ridges.

Re-evaluation of industrial ruins has become one of the significant issues of contemporary urban landscape. This issue was considered in this paper through a case of the abandoned monorail structures in the city of Himeji. The remaining structures were measured of their height, width, location, and visibility from the streets around the located areas. Owners and uses of the lots, accessibility from the surroundings, and evidences and traces showing any uses of the structures were also investigated. The result shows the ruins' two sides of potential values, to be seen and to be used, as one of the urban landscape elements.

Integrated developments of river and the vicinities have been recognized widely with focus on the affinity in addition to flood control and irrigation function in river improvement projects in urban areas. The purpose of the present study is to overview the present state and issues regarding integrated development schemes of river and the vicinities in built-up area in Japan. After existing projects and the schemes are collected and reviewed, Metoba River in Matusmoto city is selected for a detailed case study. In the case study, the impact of the integrated development is estimated with the means of hedonic approach. From the literature review of exiting projects and hedonic analysis cooperative institutional set up for the stakeholders are most essential to make the integrated implementation of the project feasible.

This paper proposes a new method of making "Neighborhood Safety Maps" which are spreading to many neighborhoods to make them more useful for participants to learn about crime prevention. As a result, it is said that the attempt to sharpen viewpoints of children with "Asobiba Charts" is yet to evaluate, but the attempt to make parents participate more deeply was positively evaluated by most of them and it was suggested that it led to the empowerment of their families.

After 2004 Sumatra Tsunami, Urban Development Authority (UDA) of Sri Lanka announced "Physical Planning Guidelines and Project Proposals for the Vulnerable Coastal Zone of Sri Lanka" in January 2005, which contains rebuilding regulations in Coastal Conservation Zone (CCZ). However many arguments have been made from the different viewpoints. The authors conducted field surveys and interviews with residents in Galle, Matara, and Hambantota to grasp building reconstruction conditions as of November 2005. This paper reports the field surveys and shows that each affected area has different own problems according to damage impact and regional characteristics.

The tsunami which swept across the Indian Ocean on 26th of December 2004 damaged to more than eighty thousand houses in Sri Lanka. In the affected area, the housing reconstruction programs directed by the government and other organizations are under way for the victims who lost their houses. This paper reports on the recent reconstructional conditions as of November 2005 based on the on-site inspection conducted by the authors. It also demonstrates the guidelines for housing reconstruction which will influence the victims who lost their houses.

With respect to population change, cities are classified into eight groups: population increase (large and medium scales), stable population change (stable both in short and long terms, stable only in long-term, small population increase, and small population decrease), and population decrease (large and medium scales). Comparison study reveals that many of cities with stable population change have relatively high job-worker ratio and low migration rate, and are the main cities in their metropolitan areas. Although these characteristics can be maintained, the trend of decrease in number of births has made stabilization of population more difficult.

In Japan, the concept of "Planning for crime prevention" has become widespread since a guideline was published by the National Police Agency in 2000. Sociologists, political scientists and journalists have a voiced a number of criticisms against the guideline, pointing out some of the problematic aspects of "Planning for crime prevention". The objective of this study is to highlight these aspects by classifying them and to discuss the broader implications of planning for crime prevention. In this study, 146 criticisms were selected from 69 Japanese journals. After reading the articles, the criticisms were categorized according to 10 categories that included "Police state", "Surveillance society" and "Fortress city". From this result the significance of self-government and quality of life as a goal were discussed.