What Makes a "Highly Happiness-Oriented" City? What is Needed for Future Urban and Community Development

Dentsu Inc.'s 'Future City Design Unit' is a specialized team that envisions the future of cities and lifestyles, providing support across various fields from concept to realization ( details here ). This time, team member Tatsuya Shirazu considers "What is required for future cities and town development?" to build "high-wellbeing" cities.

<Table of Contents>
▼Creating Happier Cities and Towns from a Single Point of Reference

▼The Future of Urban and Town Development: DX as a "Method" to Enhance Urban and Town Management Capabilities

▼The Approach of the "Urban Future Design Unit"

▼Keywords for Approaching Happier Cities and Towns from a Single Point of Reference

Building Happier Cities and Towns Centered on People

Amid growing global instability, risks from new infectious diseases like COVID-19 are compounded by geopolitical risks, energy and food security concerns, and financial uncertainty. Uncertainty permeates daily life, with rising prices, higher utility costs, and anxiety about the future value of money directly impacting people's livelihoods.

Recently, efforts to tackle these challenges have intensified across industry, government, and academia, expanding into the field of urban and community development to launch new projects. However, opportunities to specialize in learning about "urban and community development" or to gain insights in this area remain limited. There is a growing need for knowledge in this field to spread more widely, regardless of whether one comes from a science or humanities background.

Organizing the state of "urban and community development," it has evolved as follows:

[Urban Development 1.0]
The elements that make up cities and towns have mainly been hard infrastructure, such as civil engineering structures and buildings like roads, bridges, and dams; infrastructure such as energy, water and sewage, and communications; and transportation systems.

[Urban Development 2.0]
Urgent social issues have become apparent, such as the declining birthrate and aging population, the need to address risks to energy and food self-sufficiency, and the transition to a green society and a recycling-oriented social system. These issues must be addressed on an urban scale. Therefore, local governments, industry, and research and educational institutions have begun to address them broadly from the perspective of the SDGs.

[Urban Development 3.0]
Furthermore, the concept of "human-centered happiness" has emerged. Needless to say, the driving force behind cities and towns is the people who live there, working, studying, playing, raising children, and helping others on a daily basis.
People want to live better lives now and hope for peace for future generations, seeking a future where they can live happily and where happiness continues.
From this perspective, initiatives at the city/town scale—such as mechanisms supporting the lifestyles people seek, encouraging good ideas and actions, promoting voluntary participation, and enabling citizens to fully utilize public spaces—are rapidly expanding, coinciding with the advent of DX. Urban and community development 1.0 is transitioning to urban and community development 2.0. Furthermore, urban and community development 2.0 and urban and community development 3.0 are inextricably linked.

In both, the central focus is on "people." To transform living systems, it is crucial to "secure people's understanding and participation." Without the [citizen awareness, understanding, and deliberation process], implementation is impossible.

"Evoking intrinsic, voluntary awareness and action" is vital. This raises two critical questions: "How can we enhance trust in urban and community development?" and " "

The Future of Urban and Community Development: DX as a Method to Enhance Urban and Community Management Capabilities

How will DX be utilized in "urban and community development"? Let's examine it from three perspectives.

① Urban DX
From an urban management perspective, amid tight finances, numerous security challenges must be addressed: infrastructure maintenance, sustaining transportation systems, ensuring healthy water, soil, and air, guaranteeing safe and secure food supply, supporting citizens' health, and preparing peacetime measures applicable during disasters.

These systems must be flexible and designed for the long term to support people's well-being. Furthermore, if DX can be identified as a method to dramatically reduce the costs incurred, it will continue to be updated. Great expectations rest on this problem-solving approach.

② Tourism Economy DX
When visitors from outside experience a city or town's culture, nature, and way of life, fostering exchanges with locals, it leads to tourism revenue in the short term. Over time, the resulting sense of connection can develop into lasting friendships.

In these times when peace is threatened, urban and town tourism takes on deeper meaning as an opportunity to learn about diversity and develop mutual appreciation.

In promoting inbound tourism to attract overseas visitors, DX implementation can support psychological anxieties and inconveniences, enabling more fulfilling stays, enhanced interaction opportunities, and deeper learning experiences. Consequently, it becomes possible to offer new concepts of tourism and MICE(※1) experiences within unique locations, environments, and communities.

※1＝MICE
An acronym for Meetings (corporate meetings), Incentive Travel (corporate reward/training trips), Conventions (international conferences by organizations/associations), and Exhibitions/Events (trade shows, fairs). It refers to business events expected to attract large crowds and foster interaction.

Reference: https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/shisaku/kokusai/mice.html
 

③ Building a New Industrial Ecosystem
From an urban management perspective, it is necessary to work on creating a new industrial ecosystem. From [Urban/Community Development 2.0], there is an urgent need to shift to a circular business model of Green Transformation (GX), which involves restructuring industrial and social systems to realize a decarbonized society. For example, new local businesses centered on biodiversity and agriculture, forestry, and fisheries are expected to expand their potential through the penetration of digital technology, gain support from young people, and become models for creating new garden cities.

From [Urban Development 3.0], services and products that support people's happiness and well-being will emerge. If cities and towns become stages for supporting meaningful activities noticed by individuals and ideas for solving problems to help those in need, new services and products will grow from within the community. We will likely see more cases where the sensibilities and discernment of individuals who notice something new spread to a wider circle of people who sympathize with them, eventually forming a market.

New ideas, communities of people who support those ideas, and the governments and companies backing these communities could unite to create a new industrial ecosystem. Hosting festival-like events to accelerate such movements could inject new vitality into cities and towns, potentially strengthening the foundations of urban management. Since encounters, inspiration, and opportunities for exchange become valuable, the mechanisms and urban design that induce serendipity, discussed later, hold the key.

The Approach of the "Urban Future Design Unit"

Considering the evolution of urban development and current societal conditions discussed thus far, the "Urban Future Design Unit" approaches town development from the following perspectives:

① Vision Creation from a "People-Centered" × "Urban Management Perspective"
First, we unravel the land's history, cultural and industrial heritage, and regional challenges. We also identify promising initiatives emerging within the community as indicators of its vitality, forming hypotheses about its future vision. Based on these hypotheses, the vision-building step involves discussing with stakeholders committed to "creatively solving urban challenges" to identify the direction.

② Co-creation Management to Deepen Commitment
Urban and community development projects have long timeframes, requiring consensus among all stakeholders. We believe success hinges on the question: "Can we become genuinely committed, develop conviction and affection for the project, and expand that circle?"

When members who want to work with a spirit of altruism and a commitment to "building for decades ahead" come together as one team, that is a valuable asset. Co-creation management is the process to achieve this, leveraging soft project management skills to foster mutual collaboration.

③ Formation and Collaboration of the Social Implementation Team
The "Urban Future Design Unit" collaborates with regional banks, media companies, infrastructure firms, and others supporting local communities to build economic circulation mechanisms that underpin citizen services. We also undertake social demonstrations, such as comprehensive smart logistics systems incorporating drones and AI-powered recommendation systems designed to trigger behavioral change.

Leveraging this experience, we aim to contribute to "creating or participating in new social implementation teams" to help build "people-centered models for cities and towns with higher levels of happiness."

Urban and community development is important not only as a professional endeavor for us but also as a personal commitment for us as citizens. Precisely because it involves many people, we envision a process where individuals and teams grow by sharing a vision of the desired future and repeatedly conducting concrete demonstrations and implementations.

Keywords for Approaching Cities and Towns with Higher Happiness Levels, Centered on People

So, what is essential for a "happier" city? Among several factors, this article highlights the following three points:

① Awakening to the Power of Plants
Recently, the market for plant-based foods like soy meat shows signs of rapid expansion. Attention is also focusing on "plant power" —extracting medicinal properties from plants, developing new materials, expanding into plant-based power generation and carbon farming, and extracting biomass fuels.

Although Japan has long been considered resource-poor, it possesses abundant "assets surrounding plants": a rich ecosystem where forests, soil, and seas circulate; the way of life in satoyama (woodland villages) built by our ancestors; the existence of diverse plants; a living culture coexisting with plants; and resource utilization technologies like phytoplankton. Focusing on "mechanisms for cities and towns utilizing plant power" enables the advanced pursuit of "higher well-being centered on people" across all industrial sectors. Based on this concept, it is possible to envision urban and community development uniquely suited to Japan.

Launching a "Plant Power Japan Project" would enable engagement from local residents, those in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and sixth-sector industries, ventures and companies focusing on new plant power, the investment sector, schools and universities, and local governments. This would not only redefine our way of life but also contribute to solving global challenges.

② Mechanisms and Urban Design to Induce Serendipity
The term "serendipity" signifies "fortune or discovery arising from a sudden flash of insight or an unexpected encounter." While modern life is busy with work, childcare, and household duties, diverse and compelling media have emerged, significantly enhancing individuals' capacity to absorb information. Amidst this busyness, people are connected to one another.

I believe more people are consciously seeking meaningful experiences in their limited time. They walk through cities and towns with their antennas tuned to their interests, appreciate the seasons, participate in events, increase interactions, and constantly keep their desires in mind. I see urban design approaches incorporating mechanisms that support such awareness and actions, along with systems that induce serendipity, accelerating in the future.

③ Schemes Supporting the Sensibilities and Initiative of Younger Generations
The concept of biogeographic regionalism (※2) is being revisited. A younger generation is growing up, educated from an early age to recognize diversity and cultivate tolerance. The future hinges on what kind of societal structures they envision creating.

※2 = Life Regionalism
An approach that combines local natural resources and human resources (culture, history, technology, etc.) to build a circular society system and create unique regional value

Therefore, cities and towns need systems that embrace and support the desire to "voluntarily take on new challenges."

If we recognize that everything—the fulfillment and satisfaction of "achieving something new, taking on a challenge," as well as the resilience to learn from setbacks and recover from failure—contributes to a sense of happiness, then support schemes for "human development" should be integrated into the urban OS.

We will continue exploring "community happiness" in future installments. If you are considering urban or community development, please feel free to contact Dentsu Inc.'s "Urban Future Design Unit."

【Contact for Inquiries】
Urban Future Design Unit
Website: https://www.dentsu.co.jp/labo/futuredesign_unit/index.html
Email: futuredesign-unit@dentsu.co.jp