About the Urban Planning Unit
Sustainable urban development requires not only environmentally friendly development of the infrastructure making up a city but also appropriate management of that infrastructure while maintaining the city's appeal. Particularly in the current age of advancing globalization and increasingly uniform cities, preserving and nurturing a city's distinctiveness while leveraging the memory of that city has become an urgent challenge for Asian cities facing increasing development pressures. Students in the Urban Planning Unit learn from the experiences of diverse Asian cities at different stages of development and share knowledge, going beyond the decarbonization of physical aspects such as road construction and transportation to explore what constitutes sustainable urban development that incorporates cities' identities.Direction and Content of Activities
Every two years, the Urban Planning Unit sets a theme under which it engages in inter-university and intercity exchanges. Specifically, the Unit promote exchanges among researchers and students from consortium member universities through actions including launching joint research projects, conducting a student program (International Urban Planning Workshop (IUPW)) at the site of its annual general meeting, and holding international symposiums in Yokohama.