Development of Walkable City Assessment Method
Background and Objectives
Japan is undergoing a rapid population decline and super-aging, and cities are being made more compact. However, it is not enough to simply make the city compact, and in order to maintain the vitality of the city and improve the attractiveness, urban regeneration starting from “a comfortable city that induces walking” was proposed at a meeting of a panel set up in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT) in 2019, and it was decided that a “City Walkability Promotion Program” will start in FY2020. Already, 323 cities nationwide are claiming to be walkability promotion cities. The purpose of this research is to clarify a method to assess walkable cities in a cross-sectoral manner. We will aim at examining the assessment method by using as reference advanced case examples in Europe and the United States and apply them to Japanese cities.
Expected Results
Although the “City Walkability Promotion Program” promoted by the MLIT is a new policy, various related policies have been developed, such as “low-carbon city development,” localization optimization plan, and amendment of the Urban Green Space Conservation Act. These are aimed at making cities more compact, revitalizing the central city area, reducing carbon emissions, and eventually developing cities that are in harmony with the environment and are easy to live in. Similar initiatives are being implemented in great numbers overseas and being pursued from the perspectives of the environment, energy, health and welfare, transportation, economy, and tourism. In this research, we will develop a cross-sectoral and integrated assessment method of walkable city by the third year. An integrated assessment method has yet to be established and is advanced. In addition, at the moment, the policy is to be promoted through the self-declaration of
each city, but this can actually contribute to the assessment of the policy to be promoted going forward. In the first year, we will conduct a comprehensive survey of relevant cases both in Japan and overseas, while also studying advanced cases in North America. In the second year, based on the case studies, we will sort out the assessment method, and at the same time, investigate advanced cases in Europe.