International Conference onScience and Technology for Sustainability 2004

Asian Megacities and Global Sustainability

Constructing Safe and Secure Megacitiesfor Citizens

－Proposals on Megacities－

Special Committee for Megacity Problems,Scientific Council of Japan

Fuminori TomosawaProf. Nihon University (Member of the SCJ)

Secretary of the Special Committee

Introduction

The Scientific Council of Japan (SCJ) organized a special committee for megacity problems as part of the activities in its 19th term (October 2003 to September 2005) to investigate the problems and future of megacities, into which most of the world’s increasing population is expected to concentrate, from the viewpoints of all academic fields.

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The special committee held a symposium titled “For the Future of Megacities” on June 29 and 30, 2004 to open to the public the discussion in the special committee by members from all areas of the SCJ and members of related expert committees, as well as to hear more diverse views. The results are now being summarized as the SCJ’s“proposals” and “recommendations” to be announced to the public.

Followings are the outline of the symposium:

SCJ Symposium : “For the Future of Megacities”Special Committee for Megacities Problem,

Science Council of Japan29, June, 2004/10/26

Session 1 : “Are megacities safe?”

Session 2 : “Improving the quality of megacity life”

Session 3 : “For the Future of Megacities”

Plenary Lecture : Toshio Ojima, Professor, Waseda Univ., Chair of the Special Committee

Opening address : Hitoshi Kume, Professor, Chuou Univ., Director of 5th Div., SCJ

The keynote lecture by Toshio Ojima, chairman of the Special Committee, was followed by three sessions that featured keynote lectures by members of the special committee, expert reports by members of related liaison committees and expert committees, and open discussions including panelists from various areas of study.

Session 1 “Are megacities safe?” covered safety and security measures; Session 2 “Improving the quality of megacity life”covered the quality of living environments; and Session 3 “For the future of megacities” covered the social/policy systems for solving problems.

Make-up of the Symposium

Session 1 “Are megacities safe?”

The earthquake disaster is a major hazard in megacitiesin Japan. Expected to strike megacity areas includingTokyo and Nagoya in the near future.

The collapse of houses exacerbated and prolonged thesuffering of victims, hence the most important infra-structure is the houses for people’s everyday life.

The retrofitting of houses and residential buildings is vitalfor disaster prevention in this sense, but has not markedsubstantial progress so far.

Earthquake disaster

The earthquake resistance of viaducts built in accordancewith the design requirements earlier than 1980 isinsufficient, demanding retrofitting.

Lifeline infrastructure in a deeper subsurface is effectiveas provisions for future earthquakes particularly for thosethat will strike Tokyo.

Earthquake disaster

Underground malls

The size of underground malls have been rapidly increasing since the 1990s, outpacing the development of a system of integrated control of underground malls as a whole from the aspect of disaster prevention.

This is a new risk factor that endangers the areas underJapan’s major cities, demanding immediate measures.

CrimeAnother new problem is the rising crime rates, whichrequires physical, personnel, and systematic responses.

Increasing population, urbanization, global warming, andenvironmental pollution increase the risk of emergingand reemerging infectious diseases. It is necessary to establish a risk control protocol,enhance the public hygiene system at normal times, and formulate a system of analyzing and disseminatingurban factors affecting the epidemic of infectiousdiseases.

Infectious diseases

One of the recent drastic changes is the spread ofinformation technology. The Internet environment isfundamentally different from the information-communication environment based on telephone networks.

It is hard to predict the state of communication during a major disaster, since it has not been experienced by any megacity. This poses another new problem.

Risk of collapse ofinformation-communication system

during a major disaster

Session 2 “Improving the quality of megacity life”

This session questioned anew what the quality of life (QOL) is for urban residents in view of the current state of urban problems, and discussed ideal urban infra-structures from the standpoint of realizing the desired QOL.

In other words, Session 2 ascertained the desired vision of future cities and presented the objectives of urban policies.

Aim of the Session

Cultural points of view for human habitats, instead of technical points of view measured by efficiency and functionality, are important for considering the QOL in megacities,

The points of view are, for example, those considering the meaning of cities as a field of human memories and psychological anchor, as well as those for securing urban spaces suitable as a rearing environment for children where they can come into contact with nature.

Cultural points of view instead of technical ones

It is important to consider the problems and future of megacities in view of the growth stages of cities.

Japan has gone through a growth stage referred to as a period of high economic growth and entered a maturation stage under the double constraint of depopulation and zero economy growth.

The growth stages of nations and cities

It is paramount to shift the paradigm of the infrastructure concept from the conventional economy-oriented to life-oriented represented by the resurrection of lush greenery and water courses and the pursuit of the ideal form of cities as places for humans to live and grow.

For instance, it is necessary that public investment into woods and waterfronts should be accepted as whole-heartedly as that into road construction.

The formation of neighborhood communities should be actively promoted, as they are essential for the QOL of city dwellers.

Shift the paradigmof the infrastructure concept

Urban renaissance and regeneration requires tremendous amounts of money and time.

As a means to cope with this, a more sustainable urban grand master plan should be formulated, instead of conventional short-range objectives, for, e.g., 50 or 100 years later, to be set out as goals of urban regeneration.

Such a long-term perspective has been lacking in Japan’s conventional urban policies. It is necessary to organize an entity for formulating such a plan.

Need of a long-term and a more sustainable urban grand master plan

There is a pressing need to develop technology for obser-vation and simulation to evaluate measures to mitigate and cope with the heat island phenomenon.

The objective at this point is to ascertain the conditions for preventing mutual acceleration of urbanization and temperature rise.

To this end, it is necessary to accumulate detailed data by promptly formulating an observation system to avoid the foolishness of pouring tremendous resources into measures with unclear effectiveness.

A limit of megacity ? How to cope withthe heat island phenomenon

Tokyo, or greater Tokyo, which is a megacity without parallel in the rest of the world, holds a dominant position in all urban functions in Japan.

Its unmatched economies of scale have made it a global city and let it lead the development of modern Japan. Such a role of the megacity should be retained.

However, such large-scale urbanization has had a toll in lifestyle terms, with Tokyoites sacrificing affluent and healthy living. The concept of megacities should be explored by recognizing such merits and demerits.

A role and demerits of the megacity

Session 3 “For the Future of Megacities”

It is suggested that minimizing the global environmental burden and maximizing urban amenities to seek sustainability lead to the advantage of a so-called compact city.

A strategy is therefore necessary for harmonizing the merit of a large scale and the efficiency of a compact city.

Harmonizing the merit of a large scaleand the efficiency of a compact city

As a concept of a megacity in the age of the transition from growing cities to mature cities, it is advantageous to provide a double-layered structure.

In this structure the merits afforded by concentration in a “megacity” are enjoyed while “unit areas (communities)”function as the field of residence and living.

A new public sphere should be built across local municipalities to administrate the former, whereas the administrating entity for the latter will be a cooperative relationship between the government and residents.

A double-layered structure of a megacity

In Japan, several megacity areas should be functionally distributed throughout the land, each being a cluster of unit areas characterized as compact cities segmented from the megacity areas.

Building several megacity areasconsisting of compact cities

Change size of urban redevelopment projects

The number of large-scale urban redevelopments should be reduced from now on, while a large number of small-scale unit area development projects should be promoted. Such a tendency has already become evident in Europe.

(1) Shift from rapid-growth-type urban policies and land planning to policies suitable for mature society.

(2) Create urban environments as scenes of living and fostering children while retaining megacities’competitiveness in international markets.

(3) Abandon policies inclined to overconcentration in Tokyo and create several megacity areas nationwide.

Specifically summarizing the above, the following policy shifts and legislation are anticipated:

(4) To this end, develop functional megacities actively and by policy with an eye for the age of globalization.

(5) Create a network of middle- to small-sized cities to promote nation building on a decentralization basis.

(6) Establish a wide-area policy making and enforcing office exceeding local municipalities in megacity areas.

(7) Promote the transfer of the authority and tax sources to base municipalities, citizen participation in urban policy making, and retention of cultural characteristics, in order to impart the unit area with the ability of self-directive urban policy making within the area(area power).

Proposals from Special Committee (draft)

A number of valuable proposals for future measures were presented by the reporters for each topic during the discussion at the symposium.

Among the proposals, the following six were selected by the committee as urgent and effective measures to be announced to the public in the form of a statement or recommendations:

Proposals

Preface to the statement (draft)

Megacity areas should be developed with enhanced convenience and quality of life for citizens in view of the presence of global competition among regions and cities beyond countries, and the superiority of a megacity as a base for promoting economic development and cultural identity of the country and region.

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Instead of the conventional overconcentrationin Tokyo, a network structure should now be formed by transferring its functions to Osaka and Nagoya megacity areas, while promoting national megacity policies from the standpoint of residents, such as the division of megacityareas into unit areas under separate administration as places for everyday life.

Statement (draft)

1. A new framework of building sustainable megacity areas is necessary for both “megacityareas” and “unit areas.”

2. A top priority should be placed on the preservation and restoration of watersides and greenery in urban redevelopment policies.

3. A detailed meteorological system should be developed in order to take efficacious measures against the heat island effect.

4. Seismic retrofitting should be vigorously promoted by identifying existing structures that are seismically nonconforming and publicly announcing their performance.

5. An integrated disaster prevention standard and risk control system should be established for underground spaces in metropolitan areas, which are increasing in scale and complexity.

6. Public communication lifelines should be promptly secured in the ubiquitous information-communication environment.

Change direction of the Megacitypolicy from a mere pursuit of economical efficiency to building a scene of everyday life of the dwellers, either infant or elderly.

Just in conclusion

Thank you for your attention

Fuminori Tomosawa

Representing the Special Committee for Megacity Problems