At the time, in Kashiwa-shi, urbanization was progressing in the vicinity of Kashiwa Station on the JR Line and Tobu Line, as well as in the southern area. After the late 1980s or early 1990s, there arose the need to build a new local community by maintaining a balance between the northern area and agricultural areas due to the opening of the Tsukuba Express in the northern area. That is the reason why we formulated the Green City Initiative in 1996. As opposed to the vicinity of Kashiwa Station, which was mainly commercialized, we wanted to develop the Kashiwanoha Campus area into an expansive and enjoyable town that was equipped with multiple functions. This basic concept was succeeded by the current Campus Town Initiative.

Chiba University was in the process of establishing a research base for various research areas on the Kashiwanoha campus named the Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences. We began discussions for a campus plan in 2001. As a member of that discussion panel, I researched overseas campus plans. I found that in overseas university towns, the university and public administration cooperated in the town creation process while maintaining a perspective of the living environment of local citizens. Likewise, we at Kashiwanoha considered how we could develop an urban area through cooperation with the local area by positioning the university campus as one element in the local community. Based on this concept, we approached Chiba Prefecture, Kashiwa-shi and The University of Tokyo and established a joint Town Building Liaison Council. This was the predecessor of the present UDCK (*1).

After the opening of UDCK, we met about once a week for a while. About ten people from Chiba Prefecture, Kashiwa-shi, universities and Mitsui Fudosan all participated on an equal footing. The International Campus Town Initiative is said to be a joint research project comprised of four bodies - Chiba Prefecture, Kashiwa-shi, The University of Tokyo and Chiba University. However, we believe that it is the accumulation of many people's wisdom, including employees of Mitsui Fudosan.

If only one administrative unit takes on a project, the vision will tend to be limited. By participating in UDCK where everyone can freely exchange opinions, our municipality has matured.

With Kashiwa-shi's Green City Initiative as well as the presence of Chiba University's Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences and the National Cancer Center in the same area, “environment and health” serve as pillars for the urban development. When we consider the local area in the future, it is important to have a perspective of the entire picture, including individuals, society and the global environment. In that sense, “environment and health” are themes closely connected with living, leading to the concept of the “sustainability” of a city.

Chiba University has implemented a “Kashiwanoha College Link Program” as part of this partnership among the public sector, private sector and academia. It is a workshop targeting working people under the theme of “environment, health and food.” The objective is to nurture people who have a high awareness of sustainability and can take key roles in the community and spread the activities to others. We use the same word “chien” (geographic connection) to mean a “knowledge link” and hope that this knowledge link will lead to the revitalization of the community.

For sustainable urban development, we must “make small adjustments” rather than follow through with a plan at all costs. Kashiwanoha serves as a model case. Not only that, most people here have a positive stance, saying, “Why don't we try it this way,” rather than, “That's too difficult so let's stop.” As a result, the goal is set at a place outside the traditional framework. We would like to take on new, unprecedented challenges and expand the framework in a positive direction.

There are cases where an idea generated from a university evolved into a great project.

There is a small public space named “PLS” right beside UDCK which stands for “Public, Life and Space.” A large public facility is difficult to handle when it is no longer in demand. Then, a student conducting research proposed the idea of building a small, prefabricated facility that could be transferred or diverted when it is no longer necessary. This new concept is something that the public administration could not have come up with. Furthermore, if the university merely makes a proposal, companies will not go along with it. However, here, an idea was put into practice by Mitsui Fudosan and local companies through the partnership among the public sector, private sector and academia.

On the other hand, the idea of the “Velotaxi” (*2) was an idea produced by Mitsui Fudosan by happenstance. We all debated questions such as, “Let's first conduct a test run,” “Let's go to the police,” and “Why not place them in university campuses?”

Ordinary companies might estimate the income and expenditure, and then ponder, “How far can we go?” However, Mitsui Fudosan acted from the stance of, “Let's first give it a try.” From a public administration perspective, it may seem as if it was “moving too much” or “looking too far ahead.” To the contrary, it indicated a will to “give it a try at its own risk.”

It seemed to me to be urban development in consideration of future social responsibility.

The issue is how to harmoniously coexist with a rich natural environment. Rather than converting agricultural land into urban areas, we would like to create a model where harmonious coexistence with housing areas is possible. That kind of model would address various issues regional cities are facing. Furthermore, in Germany and other countries, regional cities that have a university and a population of 200,000 to 300,000 people are quite vibrant. Whether or not the presence of universities can contribute to sustainability is vital for the survival of those universities.

We would like to start bit by bit in areas where action is possible in order to make this an appealing city where people will want to continue living. In Kashiwanoha, a partnership was formed among the public administration, universities and developers, but it can be comprised of different combinations of sectors. The point is to build an organization that becomes the center of the community. If the municipal government acted as the leader, it would probably not work. The ideal would be a place like UDCK where everyone from the community can hold discussions. In the future, this kind of system will most likely work in other areas, and I believe Kashiwa-shi is learning how to do it in this project.

I hope that Mitsui Fudosan will also be able to utilize the results of the Kashiwanoha Project in other projects as well.