Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 4(2017)

Mobility Management is quite common and important methodology for transportation policy. In mobility management for sustainable urban transport, the technique of action plans has been applied to help commuters translate their intention into actual travel behavior. However, less is known about the influence of the factor, coping planning, psychologically involving both “anticipation of barriers” and “strategy for overcoming barriers” even though it has been regarded as a key role in behavior change in the fields of health psychology and behavioral medicine. Therefore, the purpose of this research was two-fold: (1) to examine the roles of not merely action planning but coping planning as the proximal psychological determinants of car use behavior and pro-environmental mode use behavior, and (2) to assess the effects of requesting commuters to form personalized action plans and coping plans, respectively, on action planning and coping planning. We conducted an internet survey to 232 respondents with a car available who live in Taipei City, Taiwan. The respondents were assigned into one of three groups with action plan intervention, with action plus coping plan intervention, and without intervention. The results indicate that (1) coping planning mediates between intention and behavior, as well as between action planning and behavior; (2) owing to existing the interaction effect, the influence of action planning on behavior will be amplified if coping planning as a moderator is high; (3) forming personalized coping plans has an instant effect in promoting coping planning. Based on these findings, soft transport policy should include coping planning and related interventions for more effectively reducing car use.

Urban informality is a reality in cities of the Global South, including Sub-Saharan Africa, which has over half the urban population living in informal settlements (slums). Taking the case of three informal settlements in Nairobi (Kibera, Mathare and Mukuru) this study aimed to show how names play an important role as urban landscape symbols. The study analyses names of sub-settlements (villages) within the slums, their meanings and the socio-political processes behind them based on critical toponymic analysis. Data was collected from archival sources, focus group discussion and interviews, newspaper articles and online geographical sources. A qualitative analysis was applied on the village names and the results presented through tabulations, excerpts and maps. Categorisation of village names was done based on the themes derived from the data. The results revealed that village names represent the issues that slum residents go through including: social injustices of evictions and demolitions, poverty, poor environmental conditions, ethnic groupings among others. Each of the three cases investigated revealed a unique toponymic theme. Kibera’s names reflected a resilient Nubian heritage as well as a diverse ethnic composition. Mathare settlements reflected political struggles with a dominance of political pioneers in the village toponymy. Mukuru on the other hand, being the newest settlement, reflected a more global toponymy-with five large villages in the settlement having foreign names. Ultimately, the study revealed that ethnic heritage and politics, socio-economic inequalities and land injustices as well as globalization are the main factors that influence the toponymy of slums in Nairobi.

In order to achieve a reduction of medical care and long-term care expenses, the center of the health care and long-term care policies have been shifting to the region and home from the facility, and urgently needed to construction of Community-Based Comprehensive Care System in Japan. The roles of Primary Care Physician (PCP) is important providing to the comprehensive home-based care that assure the QOL in the elderly. It is necessary to examine the provision system of home care services with a focus on PCP. In japan, a home care support hospital and clinic (Home Care Support Services: HCSS) is provided as medical institutions to assume a role of those PCP.

Purpose of this study is to get the knowledge for the evaluation methodology of home-based care environment for elderly people. Methodology of this paper is analysis a general service-providing area of the home-based medical care and long-term care, and analysis about Area of Primary Care with a focus on HCSS in the perspective of the density of population and facility according to geographical characteristics.

In Tochigi prefecture, according to the cover rate of elderly population for each local authorities, the cover rate of mountainous and intermountain area is relatively lower than others. Burden on providing of home-based care service of HCSS (or PCP) is small in the urban area and suburban area, and that is large in the rural area and mountainous and intermountain area. Current situation of the large burden on the providing of home-based care service of HCSS (or PCP) is a serious problem in rural area and mountainous and intermountain area. After all in these areas, there is a situation that must rely on admission facilities such as special nursing home. It is a dilemma of Japan that has aimed to build the comprehensive community care system centered on the home life.

The urban planning system in Vietnam had been developed under the strong influence of the doctrines and practices of the former Soviet Union. However, following the adoption of the Doi Moi Policy in 1986, the Vietnamese economy has been in the transition from a socialist to an open market economy, and urban development activities have diversified from being state-run initiatives to private enterprises. Under such socio-economic circumstances, the urban planning system with its obsolete and inappropriate institutional structure has not appropriately regulated urban development activities in big cities in Vietnam. To deal with such institutional shortcoming, Vietnam’s Ministry of Construction (MOC), which is in charge of urban planning, has put a lot of effort to improve the legal system including the enforcement of the Law on Urban Planning in 2010, which is the first law on urban planning in Vietnam.

In Ho Chi Minh City, the most populous city in Vietnam, two legal urban plans covering the city’s central business district (CBD) were formulated in 2012 and 2013 in accordance with the newly established law. These plans are the first full-fledged urban plans based on the new law, and they contain many innovative regulations and guidelines to make up for the shortcomings of Vietnam’s current urban planning system. Among these regulations and guidelines are the regulation for awarding a bonus floor area ratio and the guideline for preservation of historical landscapes.

This paper discusses the development and issues of Vietnam’s legal system of urban planning, the contents and formulation process of the aforesaid innovative two urban plans for the CBD in Ho Chi Minh City, and the application situation of these urban plans for three years after their approval. These two legalized urban plans in Ho Chi Minh City have been utilized for the orderly creation of urban spaces with the contribution to the public good. However, since several issues on their application have been observed, the urban plans have to be reviewed and modified periodically. Also, to disseminate the innovative urban plans to other areas, the guidelines for the formulation of the complicated urban planning system and their operation manuals are expected to be made under the initiative of the MOC.

This study aims to observe the historical transformation of the traditional maritime house in the embryo of Banjarmasin City, the Banjarese house. By intensifying on the physical features and room layout, this research will deliver a proposal on preventing the somewhat fragile Banjarese house from extinction. Firstly, the study starts with an identification of the general physical components of the remaining Banjarese houses. Secondly, the historical development is analyzed to identify the transformation pattern and room spatial arrangement. Finally, the SWOT method will be utilized to map the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities of, as well as the threat to, the Banjarese house in order to scrutinize the possibility of preservation.

The result outlines that, in spite of the general poor condition of the investigated houses, the Banjarese houses represent value and the cultural identity of the Banjarese people and their life. Despite some weaknesses and threats that may deter the Banjarese houses from getting protected, there are more valuable reasons for executing a preservation strategy with government support. In general, this study suggests a strategy of creating a living space where the old house mingles together with the surroundings. Therefore, we intend to protect not only the building itself but also the current life of its residents. Furthermore, we offer this as an idea to preserve traditional homes all over the world and especially those in developing countries.

The Landscape Act was enacted in 2004, the Cultural Properties Protection Law was revised to select important cultural landscapes in 2005, and the Act on Maintenance and Improvement of Traditional Scenery was enacted in 2008. The features of these legal enforcements are to require municipalities to make plans regarding landscape formation and to require local residents and businesses to cooperate in creating fine sceneries. It is important for Japanese society to enhance social concerns on landscape matters as well as advance academic research for settling the regional problems. Thus, this paper aims to discuss the relation between academic perspectives and social concerns on landscape matters by clarifying the current trends on both sides. This paper also aims to discuss the future directions of landscape research. The data sources are academic research papers and Japanese national newspapers published from 2008 to 2013, which covers the period after the laws listed above came into force through the first decade of enactment of the Landscape Act.

Through this study, the following two points are noted. The first is that most newspaper articles focus on the conservation or utilization of the landscape regardless of landscape type. For example, articles on rural landscapes describe several conservation methods such as utilizing landscape measures or promoting the agricultural industry. The second is that there are three types of relationships between research papers and newspaper articles: the features of the landscape matters described in both sources, the advancement of academic research that contributes to settling the regional landscape issues, and the subsequent publication of related newspaper articles, although the issues addressed in newspapers cover a much broader area than the focus of academic papers.

In response to the phenomenon of urban shrinkage that affects many Japanese cities, and its various associated social issues, the Japanese Government has implemented compact city policies as a part of urban planning. A compact city is characterized in Japan by dense and proximate urban areas that are linked by public transformation systems, but the feasibility of applying a single compact city model to different regional or local circumstances is susceptible. To understand the actual state of urban shrinkage, this study was aimed at examining spatial emerging patterns of vacant land in residential areas of mid-sized cities called “regional urban centers” in Japan where such patterns are still unknown. The study was conducted using a three-step procedure: a) identifying the overall trends of urban shrinkage in all Japanese regional urban centers and selecting a case study site b) constructing a detailed database of vacant land and five characteristics of the residential areas: age, orderliness, distance from the central area, convenience of public buses, and road width, and c) identifying the relations between the number of vacant lands and the characteristics of the residential areas by using a Poisson regression model. Tottori City, a regional urban center of Chugoku Region, was selected as the case study site. The results show that the convenience of public buses, one of the emphasized factors when the government made a compact city plan, had no relationship with the distribution of vacant land. It might be because Tottori residents highly depend on private cars and are little concerned with public transportations. Instead, a narrow road width appears to be one of the crucial hindrances of residential replacement. A high rate of vacant land then should be regarded not as problematic space but as a resource for reconstruction of residential areas, such as the widening of narrow roads.

This paper presents a bi-objective model for determining the size and shape of a finite size facility.The objectives are to minimize both the closest and barrier distances. The former represents the accessibility of customers, whereas the latter represents the interference to travelers. The total closest and barrier distances are derived for a rectangular facility in a rectangular city where the distance is measured as the rectilinear distance. The analytical expressions for the total closest and barrier distances demonstrate how the size and shape of the facility affect the distances. The model focuses on the tradeoff between the closest and barrier distances, and the tradeoff curve provides alternatives for the size and shape of the facility.

There is an annually increasing trend in the number of people who must be taken to a hospital by ambulance following an accident related to smartphone use while walking, making this practice a significant social issue. In recent years, location information games using augmented reality have grown in popularity around the world, and so the risk of collisions or accidents arising from smartphone use while walking is increasing. For the present study, we focused on changes in the behavior of those who walk while using a smartphone to quantitatively verify the increased risk of collision, and conducted walking experiments using an eye mark recorder and an accelerometer. We first looked at the movement of the walkers’ point of visual focus, and found that those who walk while web browsing or texting visually confirm the path ahead only about 30% of their total walking time, and that for the visual field, their lateral range in particular was greatly decreased. Further, this tendency did not change with increases or decreases in pedestrian traffic, which revealed that those who walk while using a smartphone do not adjust their level of forward visual confirmation regardless of changes in pedestrian traffic density. Next, analyses were conducted of walkers’ avoidance and speed reducing behaviors. It was found that, as pedestrian traffic density increased, a greater acceleration was seen in the lateral and forward directions. It was clarified that, particularly when walking while texting, accelerations in the lateral direction and forward direction at 0.2 persons/m² were 1.6 times and roughly twice as high respectively than acceleration at 0.0 persons/m².

There are many slums and squatter settlements in Dhaka. Sometimes, slums are found in prime locations and inhabitants are under fear of eviction. Slum inhabitants play an important role in the national economy as cheap labors in the center of Dhaka. This paper aims to investigate whether the land sharing approach can be applied in a Dhaka's slum to provide formal land tenure for slum residents in two aspects: acceptability to both slum dwellers and landowners, and financial feasibility. Additionally, this study aims to identify the appropriate design and tenure type for land sharing. In this study, the contingent valuation method (CVM) was applied and a questionnaire survey was conducted to inhabitants in Korail slum and an interview survey was carried out with the government officials whose organizations are land owners of the area. As for the results, inhabitants and landowners showed acceptance of land sharing in Korail. Both prefer to middle-rise buildings, but their preference for land tenure differs. Regarding with financial feasibility, the only scenario that proposes middle-rise apartment houses with full tenure ship is feasible financially, and other land sharing scenarios need some fundraising.

Baan Eua Arthon (BEA) housing program is a large-scale government housing program under a million house program which implemented by the National Housing Authority (NHA). It responses to a housing backlog for Thailand’s low-income population and one of populist policies of Thaksin Shinawatra, the Former Prime Minister of Thailand. This paper aims to evaluate the program impact of housing condition on the low-income group in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR), and examine the risks of a populist housing policy. As the original objective of BEA project is to assist the low income group to have security of tenure by ownership. Due to the weakness of one price and design in the different locations which made the huge loss of the NHA because many units remained unsold. The NHA tried to solve the problems by changing an eligible income and price several times to open up an opportunity for higher income to access to BEA housing units. Furthermore, the populist nature of the housing policy, characterized by setting too large a supply target for BEA housing that was beyond the management capacity of the NHA, the low affordability of the originally targeted group, the inappropriate program scheme and procedure involving private developers, the NHA faced severe management crises, such as the surplus of unsold units that forced the deregulation of the income ceiling for eligible applicants. The BEA program thus changed from its original mission as a home-ownership program for low-income people to something that improved housing for the lower- to middle-income groups.