Toward Sustainable Regions: Essays in Honor of Kiyoko Hagihara

This book deals with regional sustainability, which is one of the biggest issues in Japan today, and presents suggested methods and cases to show how regional management should be carried out. Today, regions in Japan are facing long-term global challenges such as changes in climate and in international relations, as well as regional financial difficulties due to depopulation and aging. Additional causes are the decline of traditional culture and community sustainability, the crisis of public services, inner- and inter-regional disparities, disaster response, and other local and region-specific issues that are intricately related. To meet the challenge of those issues, local actors must deal with the regional issues themselves and solve them in cooperation with various other stakeholders. From this perspective, the book exhibits regional management frameworks, focusing especially on evaluation, decision making, and aid in multi-dimensional approaches, and examines case studies for making regions sustainable by allowing diverse actors to realize diverse values and standards in cooperation. The chapters cover a wide range of disciplines, including urban science, economics, geography, landscape, real estate, and public finance, which makes it possible to shed light on a particular region.

This book comprises a collection of essays celebrating the life and work of Kiyoko Hagihara, honorary professor of the Graduate School of Urban Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan. Essay contributors include her former students as well as regional scientists with similar interests.

Chisato ASAHI

Dr. Chisato Asahi is a professor in the Department of Urban Science and Policy of the Faculty of Urban Environmental Sciences at the Tokyo Metropolitan University where she has been a faculty member since 2007.

Chisato completed her PhD of Urban Science at Tokyo Metropolitan University and her undergraduate studies at University of Tokyo. Her research interests lie in the area of urban and environmental economics, cost-benefit analysis, and evaluation research.

She has collaborated with several academic researchers and published books coping with environmental evaluation including economic appraisal and multi-criteria decision analysis, regional vulnerability, and resilience.

She has served on the CEIS Publications Committee and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Japan Section of Regional Science Association International. She has also served on several expert panels on social infrastructure development and on public project evaluation.

She received the 16th Incentive Award from the Japan Section of Regional Science Association in 2007 and the Ministry of Works in 2014.

Noriko Horie

Dr Noriko Horie became a member of the Department of Public Policy, Faculty of Sociology at Bukkyo University in 2014 and a professor from 2022. She has also been Dean of the Faculty of Sociology and the Graduate School of Sociology since 2023.

She completed her PhD of Urban Science at Tokyo Metropolitan University and her undergraduate studies at University of Chiba.

Her research interests are interdisciplinary and include urban environmental studies, urban planning, landscape architecture, and museology. She has co-authored books and numerous research papers on parks and green spaces, environmental assessment, regional management, and museum-like functions.

She has been a member or chair of councils, planning commissions, and other committees on urban planning and the environment in municipalities and related organizations for more than 20 years. She is also an advisor and board member of nongovernment organizations such as Parks and Recreation Foundation.