50
life expectancy can cut medical expenses from rapidly skyrocketing for the elderly.
In the eyes of TCG, all of these efforts enable building a city that is caring and
friendly to both humans and the environment. As a result, Toyama city seeks to
make itself the chosen destination among the other cities in Japan, with the hopes of
attracting a larger population and increased investment (Toyama City 2017).
At the same time, however, TCG’s compact city policies pose a thorny problem
concerning how the city achieves greater levels of coordination and symbiosis
between its central and periphery areas. In fact, we encountered a number of citizens who have raised their concerns and worries that there might be a potentially
irreversible disparity occurring from prospective continuous decline in the administrative services and resources allocated to the peripheral, hilly, and mountainous
area. Also, some of those tend to see that a series of socioeconomic revitalization
measures—understood by TCG as one of the most pressing agenda and taken almost
exclusively in the central area—has been determined by processes not being open
enough to include a wider spectrum of individuals who can better represent grassroots and civil societal viewpoints. From these perspectives, it can be said that the
city faces a governance issue where a way of making its collective decision should
be attuned to a more direct citizen participatory initiative.
In addition, Toyama city has a unique urban setting where surroundings of the
terrain make the world’s rare landscape environment. Such a landscape endows the
city with a 4000 m height difference which extends from the peak point of the
Tateyama mountain range (3000 m height) in the south to the bottom of Toyama
Bay (1000 m depth) in the north. TCG tries to take advantage of this particular geographical characteristic to appeal the city’s attractiveness. That in turn means that,
on the one hand, the city accelerates bolstering and upgrading of urban functions in
its central area, but at the same time the city needs to conserve and enhance a wide
array of natural capitals in its peripheral rural area. We thus argue that such a diverse
socioeconomic and ecological landscape constitutes an interesting context in which
how the participating citizens envision desirable features of their future city can be
affected.
4.2.1.2 Membership of WS Participants
All the participants volunteered to participate with understanding of the purpose of
the WS. The total number of such participants was 16, of whom 9 were male. They
extended from teenagers to elderly people in their 70s. Everyone but two participants are Toyama residents. The two nonresidents have ongoing business interests
in the city and travel into the city every week day. Thus, all participants are direct
stakeholders in the path of the city’s future. In 2016, the WS was held as a threetime event on August 6th and 27th and on October 22nd, each involving 5 to 6-h
sessions in the afternoon with intermissions.
During the WS, the participants were evenly divided into two groups (Groups A
and B) based on gender and age (see Table 4.1). Each group was facilitated by two
of our authors, who took a content neutral stance, not intervening in the participants’ talks in terms of substance. Also, the facilitators had prepared in advance the
K. Aoki et al.
life expectancy can cut medical expenses from rapidly skyrocketing for the elderly.
In the eyes of TCG, all of these efforts enable building a city that is caring and
friendly to both humans and the environment. As a result, Toyama city seeks to
make itself the chosen destination among the other cities in Japan, with the hopes of
attracting a larger population and increased investment (Toyama City 2017).
At the same time, however, TCG’s compact city policies pose a thorny problem
concerning how the city achieves greater levels of coordination and symbiosis
between its central and periphery areas. In fact, we encountered a number of citizens who have raised their concerns and worries that there might be a potentially
irreversible disparity occurring from prospective continuous decline in the administrative services and resources allocated to the peripheral, hilly, and mountainous
area. Also, some of those tend to see that a series of socioeconomic revitalization
measures—understood by TCG as one of the most pressing agenda and taken almost
exclusively in the central area—has been determined by processes not being open
enough to include a wider spectrum of individuals who can better represent grassroots and civil societal viewpoints. From these perspectives, it can be said that the
city faces a governance issue where a way of making its collective decision should
be attuned to a more direct citizen participatory initiative.
In addition, Toyama city has a unique urban setting where surroundings of the
terrain make the world’s rare landscape environment. Such a landscape endows the
city with a 4000 m height difference which extends from the peak point of the
Tateyama mountain range (3000 m height) in the south to the bottom of Toyama
Bay (1000 m depth) in the north. TCG tries to take advantage of this particular geographical characteristic to appeal the city’s attractiveness. That in turn means that,
on the one hand, the city accelerates bolstering and upgrading of urban functions in
its central area, but at the same time the city needs to conserve and enhance a wide
array of natural capitals in its peripheral rural area. We thus argue that such a diverse
socioeconomic and ecological landscape constitutes an interesting context in which
how the participating citizens envision desirable features of their future city can be
affected.
4.2.1.2 Membership of WS Participants
All the participants volunteered to participate with understanding of the purpose of
the WS. The total number of such participants was 16, of whom 9 were male. They
extended from teenagers to elderly people in their 70s. Everyone but two participants are Toyama residents. The two nonresidents have ongoing business interests
in the city and travel into the city every week day. Thus, all participants are direct
stakeholders in the path of the city’s future. In 2016, the WS was held as a threetime event on August 6th and 27th and on October 22nd, each involving 5 to 6-h
sessions in the afternoon with intermissions.
During the WS, the participants were evenly divided into two groups (Groups A
and B) based on gender and age (see Table 4.1). Each group was facilitated by two
of our authors, who took a content neutral stance, not intervening in the participants’ talks in terms of substance. Also, the facilitators had prepared in advance the
K. Aoki et al.