●Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM

Aiming for Compact, Low-Carbon Urban
Planning
SHIBATA Yoshiyuki
Director of the Urban Planning Department(Keywords) Compact urban structure, low-carbon city, sustainable society
1. Introduction
On February 28 of this year, the Cabinet
approved the submission of the “Bill on Promotion ofLow-Carbon Cities” to the Diet. The Bill asks
relevant ministers to jointly establish basic guidelines
for the preparation of low-carbon urban plans to be
formulated by cities, towns, and villages, and provides
special measures based on the plans and measures todisseminate and to promote low-carbon buildings.
Low-carbon urban planning comprehensively
promotes measures such as the intensification ofurban functions,promotion of public transportutilization, and area management and efficientutilization of greenery and energy in specified areas
such as urbanization promotion areas to encourage
cities to shift towards low-carbon production. The
bill clearly stipulates “intensification of urbanfunctions”, and therefore, various measures will be
developed concerning intensive low-carbon urbanplanning.
2. On Intensive Urban Structures
It is recognized that to address the population
decline, aging of society, and the necessity to
streamline urban management costs, we should aim
for a compact city with “intensive urban structure”
in which a certain number of people live densely in an
certain area where a good living environment andspace for interaction are efficiently provided byconcentrating theurban functions and public
services they require. This report presents relatedtrends.
(1) The “Compact City” Concept
The term “compact city” reminds us of initiatives
taken by Aomori City and Toyama City, which weretaken while the national and local governments weredebating various issues in preparation for enacting
new laws to invigorate city centers. The beneficialeffects of encouraging compactness on the cost ofmaintaining public facilities and on the conservationof energy were advocated, and people’s focus wason concentrating urban functions in city centers andpreventing additional expansion .
(2) Act on the Improvement and Vitalization in CityCenter
This act, enacted in 1998, focused on

concentrating urban functions in city centers,
improving streets and parking facilities,andproviding public transportation networks to city
centers, to improve built environments together with
the invigoration of commercial activities, while
striving to minimize the contribution of the central
government
However, city centers did not cease to decline as aresult of unachieved designation of land use
regulation and the continued competition to locate
large stores in suburbs or on former factory land.
(3) The Three Revised Acts on Urban Planning
An advisory given in response to the question“How should urban planning be done in the new age?”,submitted in June 2005 by the Sectional Committeeon Urban Planning and Historic Landscape of thePanel on Infrastructure Development, noted in its
first report in February 2006 the need for “urbanrestructuring” to replace existing urban structures withconcentrated urban structures, in which the locationsof commercial, administrative, medical, cultural, andother functions which provide services over wide
areas areconcentrated to ensure accessibility
without reliance on automobiles, thus creating cities inwhich many people can enjoy convenient daily life.
This resulted in the necessity for policies based on
an awareness of urban shrinkage.
The three revised acts on urban planning enacted in2006 (Revised City Planning Act, Act on theMeasures by Large-scale Retail Stores for
Preservation of Living Environments, and Act on
Vitalization in City Center) strengthen theinvolvement of the national government in approvingplans made by local governments, setting andevaluating numerical targets, etc. and require measures
to restrict the location of large-scale facilities which
attract many customers, particularly in the suburbs ofregional cities.
Methods for land-use control in suburbs haveincreased, but the goals in this case were to help
achieve goals established separately for city centers.
(4) Bill for Promotion of Low-Carbon Cities
The Sectional Committee on Urban Planning andHistoric Landscape continued studies in response tothe question of 2005, and concluded its deliberations
on February 17 of last year, when it received progress

●Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM
reports from the Safe and Secure Urban Planning
Subcommittee and City Planning Statutory System
Subcommittee.
The report from the City Planning Statutory System
Subcommittee clearly states the basic guideline: “Inplace of past urban planning and related systems
which focused on land and supply countermeasures,new systems will be repositioned to implement
intensified city structures permitting sustainable urban
life, sustainable urban activities, and sustainable
environments.”
In this basic guideline of the Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, announced in
November to promote sustainable and vigorous
national land and regional development, “regionalintensification (proximity of medical, employment,and residential functions)” and “formulation oflow-carbon and recyclable systems” are presented as
directions for new policy development to create asustainable society. The bill conforms to suchdirections.

appraisal, and challenging smooth urban shrinkage
method development .
Also to offer public support to private-sector urban
developers, we are researching block-level energy
saving measures, heat island countermeasures, andmeasures to ensure greenery.
Further research is still needed on the directions ofurban policies to create a sustainable society, with thehelp of members in other fields.

3. Expectations Following the New Bill
Urban planning and policies intended to create asustainable society, which is the basic guideline, areexpected to bring great results.
The reason is that the purposes of the guideline
ought torequire, in addition tointensifying
functions in a specified area, enacting plans to deal
with the shrinkage of low density urban districts andother aspects of cities in general, and theadvancement of these policies together ought todeepen the “intensive urban structures”, andeffectively achieve the goals of other urban policies,
such as lowering the carbon emissions of entire cities,
reducing the cost of maintaining cities, invigoratingcity centers, and improving urban landscape byincreasing its greenery.
We want to note how local planning bodies will
focus on organizing “regional intensification” and“formulation of low-carbon and recyclable systems”
as their own policy challenges to skillfully apply“low-carbon urban planning.”

http://www.mlit.go.jp/en/toshi/city_plan/toshi_city_plan_fr_00
0000.html

4. Initiatives by the Urban Planning Department
Urban planning powers are now increasingly
transferred to local bodies, and the Urban Planning
Department of NILIM is required toprovide
technical support to local planning bodies toimplement this new system to create “intensive urbanstructures”. The Department plays important roles by
providing various knowledge regarding technologicalguidance given by the City Bureau of the MLIT, or byshowing planning methods and technologies to local
planning bodies.
Accordingly, we have already conducted a numberof research programs aware of population decline,
established assessment methods for future city
structures, challenging objective land-use suitability

References1) MLIT web site: Document distributed by theSectional Committee on Urban Planning andHistoric Landscape of the Panel on Infrastructure
Development
http://www.mlit.go.jp/policy/shingikai/s202_toshirekishi01.html
2)

Press release of the MLIT “Promoting Sustainableand Vigorous National Land and Regional
Development (November 15, 2011)

3)

MLIT website, Low Carbon city Development
Guidance

http://www.mlit.go.jp/common/000172677.pdf