Towards the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda Contributions from Japan and Germany to Make Cities More Environmentally Sustainable

After the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, 2015) by the United Nations, the New Urban Agenda (2016) was adopted during the Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), and was later approved by the United Nations General Assembly. Habitat III presented ambitious action policies for sustainable urban planning. This book summarizes the contents of an international conference that brought together researchers from Nagoya University Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Leibniz Institute for Ecological Cities and Regional Development, and Dresden Institute of Technology to discuss how Japan and Germany, which have mature economies and aging societies, can contribute to the realization of this agenda. Associate Professor U Hiroi and the author, who are both presently affiliated with Department of Urban Engineering at the Graduate School of Engineering, had also been affiliated with Nagoya University. Therefore, they both have participated in this international conference and publication.
 
The participants’ specialties range widely, covering architecture, civil engineering, urban planning, green space planning, environmental engineering, and disaster prevention and mitigation. In order for Japan and Germany to form sustainable and resilient cities by responding to societal changes occurring during their era of maturity, it is necessary to coordinate and merge various fields that handle urban material environments, expanding beyond the independent academic frameworks in which each field has developed in the past. This book comprises a total of twenty-one papers, consisting of six major sections: “Landscape Changes and Management,” “Climate Change and Urban Green,” “Environmental Risks in Urban Areas,” “Built Environment and Material Flow,” “Urban Energy Concepts,” and “Future Challenges of Planning.”
 
As an urban planning specialist, the author discusses the necessity and the future direction of re-examining the conceptual framework of Japanese urban planning based on district-scale community development. In a state of uncertainty stemming from unexpected population decline, hollowing out of city centers and outskirts, and population migration based on disaster risks, the author examines the realistic visions for the future of each district that makes up the cities, and the means for realizing them. Through this process, the means to plan for adjustments, which will ensure that the entire cities will survive and continue to function, is outlined, and it serves as a key conceptual framework of the author’s later research and practice. What led to such a framework was the community building practices in Fujimaki-cho (Meitō-ku, Nagoya) and Nishiki 2-Chome (Naka-ku, Nagoya) presented in the author’s chapter, as well as the formulation of the natural disaster reduction vision of the urban Nagoya region. It also indicates that research in the urban planning field and formulation of conceptual frameworks are closely associated with urban planning and community development practices.
 

(Written by MURAYAMA Akito, Associate Professor, School of Engineering / 2019)