Green Infrastructure in Cities and Introduction of AI in Smart Cities [Part 1]

Can you tell us why you decided to move from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, where you played a central role in policy planning for parks and other matters, to your current company (Neural Group, Inc.), which handles data?

While working on policy issues as a national civil servant, I often felt that the excellent technology of the private sector was not being properly incorporated into policy, and that the needs of the government were not being properly communicated to the private sector. I thought that acting as an intermediary on the private sector side would be my role in the latter half of my professional life, and so I decided to do so.
In addition, no matter where I am, I consider urban parks to be my life's work, but I feel that it is an issue that local government officials are not able to fully grasp the actual usage of urban parks, and I thought that it would be necessary to provide those involved in park administration with a clear visualization of who is using the parks and how. By using Neural Group's AI imaging technology, the actual usage of the space can be seen at all times.
I decided to change affiliations in the hope that by working on the technical side as someone who understands planning and administrative circumstances, I could act as a bridge between the administrative side's aspirations and the technology to make them come true.

When we think about "urban development," there are many different scales and themes, such as concepts and ideas like smart cities, areas like the environment and transportation, parks, and even city components like trees and furniture. What themes will you be focusing on when talking about "urban development" in the future? We would also like to hear your views on themes that cannot be overlooked from the perspective of national policy.

First, from a policy perspective, "disaster prevention and mitigation" is a recurring theme in Japan, where natural disasters are frequent and climate change is becoming more pronounced. Laws related to river basin flood control have been enacted, but coupled with the declining population, I feel that the time has finally come when it is acceptable to clarify places where people should not live in the first place. I think that in the future, when it comes to town development, it will be an era in which we will need to carefully consider where people should live and how to enrich the land they live on.
"Area management" is also an important theme. Coupled with the information society, local decision-making is no longer done solely by the government, but is rapidly changing to be done by a broader consensus of local actors. There is no generalized answer to area management, and individual optimization is necessary. To achieve this, careful communication is required, and I believe that the role of objective data is particularly important.
Small-scale elements such as trees and benches are also important in creating the atmosphere of a town. Even an ordinary tree may hold a special meaning for some people, such as "this is the tree my child caught the first cicada from." I think it is important to proceed with design and maintenance with the understanding that even the small elements that make up a space contain layers of human emotion. By simply designing small elements, it may be possible to send the message that "it's okay for elderly people and children to be in that space."
I believe that the concepts of "sustainability" and "compact city," as well as the areas of "sports" and "health and wellness" will also become important themes in urban development.
"Compact city" is a very important concept that serves as an opportunity for local governments to comprehensively consider urban sustainability. Policies presented by the Urban Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, such as "walkable" and "smart city,"​ ​are carefully crafted before being released to the public, and I think they are all important concepts. However, because these concepts are interlockingly related to a very wide range of fields, I think there are cases where they are not actually a common language.

The term "green infrastructure" and its meaning are expanding at present, but I would like to clarify when the term first came into being and how it has developed since then.

The term "green infrastructure" first appeared in a government document in the 2015 "Second National Land Development Plan (National Plan)". After that, concrete consideration began in the Policy Bureau around 2018. Currently, systems for public-private collaboration, such as the "Green Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership Platform," have been established. During this process, I also participated in the discussions as a member of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, and considered what green infrastructure is. During this time, the idea of "growing infrastructure" was born.
The idea is that concrete starts to deteriorate the moment it is made, while nature is an infrastructure whose functions improve with appropriate human involvement. This idea seems to be gradually being understood within the ministry.

We were able to confirm that the idea that the term green infrastructure can be used as a way to further develop the attractiveness and power of the nation's land is rooted in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's philosophy. I think the challenge for the design office is how to incorporate this into cities and how to apply it to facilities within cities.
It is very interesting that within the framework of public-private partnerships known as the "Green Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership Platform," a "Finance Subcommittee" has been established to address aspects other than technology. Please tell us how it was established.

In parallel with the discussions at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) was also discussing green infrastructure. Until then, the premise was that parks and green spaces were created by the public, but even in large-scale developments by private developers such as Mitsubishi Estate, there were increasing efforts to use green spaces to differentiate their developments or to use them as added value. In addition, ESG investment was expanding, and there was a movement toward private funds being contributed to risk reduction.
We discussed how to utilize this private money for the benefit of society, and whether green infrastructure could be a key word to start with, and how to think about how to achieve this. There is a growing trend to invest in sustainability worldwide, and there have been reports of cases overseas where money is being funneled into green infrastructure. Rather than working with collected tax money, we decided to launch a finance committee to consider ways to combine this money with private investment to implement larger green infrastructure projects.

You were one of the people who promoted green infrastructure at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism when it was first getting started. I would appreciate your opinion on the next development of green infrastructure, particularly in cities.

When I think about what makes up a city's individuality, I think the most representative elements are "landscape" and "food." Landscapes are made up of the natural environment, and food, including ingredients and cooking methods, is also based on the bounty of nature. When I was involved in urban agriculture work, I learned that there are many ingredients that can only be found in that region.
This natural environment is the foundation that shapes the individuality of the region and the way people live. When considering the creation of livable towns and tourism policies that people feel attached to, the more seriously we focus on creating places and resources, the more important green infrastructure becomes.

Besides expanding into tourism, do you have any other interesting ideas?

I think we need to re-evaluate the role of urban farmland as a form of land use. As we enter a super-aging society, the efficiency of welfare budgets in local government finances is a very important issue. In addition, extending healthy life expectancy will become even more important, not only from a financial perspective but also from the perspective of individual happiness.
To achieve this, we need to provide opportunities for physical activity in various forms. Increasing opportunities for sports is important, but we also believe there is a need to utilize urban farmland near residential areas for this purpose. Growing vegetables requires a lot of physical activity, and it requires getting up early in the morning, and bringing home vegetables fosters communication with family and neighbors. We believe that making good use of urban farmland can increase social happiness.

Regarding the disaster prevention functions of green infrastructure, has the numerical basis for its natural water retention capacity, etc. been made clear?

​It is difficult to clarify the numerical basis, and this has become an ongoing theme in the technical committee of the Public-Private Partnership Platform. Research is underway on reducing sewage loads through rooftop greening and the water retention capacity of residential forests in Nishitokyo City.

In my work, I have the opportunity to discuss how to evaluate green infrastructure, and the issue is exactly what to quantify and how to do it. In addition, from another perspective of "walkable towns," quantification indicators such as "Indicators for Measuring the Comfort of Urban Areas (Draft)" (2020, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) are being discussed. Do you have any ideas for quantitative indicators for comfort?

That's exactly why I changed jobs (laughs). However, there are technical challenges, and I feel that we also need to discuss what indicators of comfort are in the first place. For example, in image analysis, we receive requests such as "I want to measure smiles" and "I want to know the activities of the people there." However, I think that there needs to be more discussion about whether it is appropriate to say that a place is comfortable just because people are smiling. I also feel that for such uncertain analysis items, it is necessary to accumulate judgments through visual inspections and questionnaires before carrying out technical developments.
On the other hand, basic data such as "number of visitors" can be obtained using existing technology, so I think it would be good to have an approach that deepens indicators from data that can already be obtained. The same goes for the evaluation of green infrastructure, but I think it is important not to give up and think "we don't need to evaluate," and to maintain the mindset that we will evaluate in some way even if we may not be able to find an absolute evaluation indicator, and to constantly keep up with new technologies.