Global warming city planning studies: A transdisciplinary approach to sustainable cities

This paper describes the shift in urban planning strategies toward more sustainable cities. The United Nations General Assembly's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) span from poverty eradication to education improvements to the preservation of global assets such as seas and climates. Achieving these broad objectives requires comprehensive and cross-disciplinary methods. Because the SDGs are inextricably linked to urban activities, urban planning is one of the most effective strategies for achieving them. In this article, we first outline a conceptual framework for the interplay of urbanization and climate change, and then predict the future trajectory of increasing worldwide urbanization in this century, as well as the resulting sustainability issues. Then, as sustainable science, we examine the path of urban planning analysis to address sustainability issues, and we suggest the cross-assessment method for vision-led urban planning. The cross-assessment method seeks to investigate synergistic solutions integrating various value systems by evaluating the effects of measures pursuing each value component on a variety of outcome indicators. The case studies for the cross-examination are drawn from Japanese public transportation policy. Finally, we examine the effects of socioeconomic changes and technical development on urban growth, particularly in the areas of transportation, building, and communication.