Page 1 of 2 Next  Akira Ohgai Toyohashi University of Technology,Center for Collaborative Regional Planning and Design,Japan aohgai@urban.tutrp.tut.ac.jp Leleito Emanuel Toyohashi University of Technology,Center for Collaborative Regional Planning and Design,Japan emanuelleleito@hotmail.com Impacts of the protracted slump in the Japanese economy continue to be felt and local governments in Japan are increasingly being faced with severe financial and economic difficulties. Structual Reforms and Regional Autonomy in Japan Part of the structural reforms to salvage the economy includes initiatives to give local governments more fiscal autonomy. This has lead to cuts in national taxes allocated to local governments (local grant tax) 1, aimed at ensuring above minimum service levels to the public and balanced development across the nation, thus making it difficult to secure enough finances for maintaining high public service standards and raising fears of a general deterioration of public service provisions. Furthermore, local governments have to contend with sustainability issues especially in the rural remote settlements due to aging and shrinking population combined with falling birthrates. Settlements or villages whose population of over 65years exceeds 50% of the total are on a sharp increase with some on the verge of extinction. Needs of Collaborative Planning Approach in Japanese Regions More autonomy comes with more responsibility. With a limited budget, local governments are being strongly encouraged to ensure economic and social sustainability of their districts by acting proactively and taking independent minded initiatives to deal with the wide range of issues facing them. Local governments have resorted to merges with neighboring entities, cooperation on regional development issues with educational and research institutions, Non- Profit Organizations and even with residents (including Community Based Organizations and action groups) , hinting at an underlying strong lean towards a collaborative planning approach. The just concluded municipal merges dubbed “The Heisei Merges”, actively promoted by the national government with the goal of cost savings through economies of scale and streamlining of government bureaucracies and services, was also aimed at equity and efficiency focusing mainly on health and welfare, education, social infrastructure, the living environment, industry and town planning2. It has however raised concerns that agglomeration will, rather than create solutions, lead to more problems including: inconvenience due to distance increase to services such as those provided by the municipal and other government offices, obsolescence of smaller outlying areas and suburbs located far from the core municipalities, information flow difficulties between the residents and the administration, loss of regional culture and traditions, more burden to residents due to decrease in service levels and et cetera.  Fig 1 Regional Planning and Strategy Formulation Process Needs to Develop a Participatory Regional Planning Support System (PRPSS) As opposed to the past when plans were handed down from the central government, local governments now have to identify problems affecting their regions, set their own objectives and make and act on their own regional plans. And since the trend is towards a collaborative regional planning, there is a need to develop systems that can support and encourage participation in the planning process by all the stakeholders. In order to contribute to the implementation of a new national plan, the government currently is promoting more advanced usage of spatial information utilizing GIS technology. Development of more interactive methods, easy accessibility and presentation of information related to regional planning in clear easy to understand formats are key requirements. On-going Research Project In our on-going research project, we intend to develop a Participatory Regional Planning Support System (PRPSS) based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the Internet technologies to aid local governments in regional planning through presentation and sharing of information related to planning among all the stakeholders. A basic database containing various regional spatial data together with a system to integrate, manage and present all the varied data is studied and a prototype will be developed. Visualization and analysis of the actual and future situations in the regions are some methods expected to promote general awareness, identification of problems, causes and solutions as well as support consensus building among the stakeholders and thus contribute to regional planning and strategy formulation process.  Fig 2: Study Area:San-En-Nanshin region
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