@article{oai:u-hyogo.repo.nii.ac.jp:00001271, author = {Ueno, Kazufumi and Ueno, Kazufumi}, issue = {214}, journal = {Working paper}, month = {Jun}, note = {With an increase of population flow to the city centers in Kobe City, the suburbs are now suffering from a drastic change in redistribution of population. Since people are moving to more convenient places of residence, all housing sites in the suburbs are competing against other sites not only in the city centers but also within the suburbs or the same town. Thus, the suburbs are at a new phase of the urban development cycle. This paper aims to study how residents have adapted their lives to such stagnant suburbs, and further to offer suggestions on how to establish a sustainable city form, based on good relationships between the suburbs and the city centers. For this purpose, two types of residential sites were surveyed; a newly built high-rise flat nearby a subway station in a new town and a relatively old detached house community in another new town. Furthermore, two kinds of lifestyles are introduced as a viewpoint for analysis; an urban lifestyle that makes much of conveniences and a suburban lifestyle that makes much of amenities. From the findings, the concept of compact town in the suburbs is offered to be an important component of a sustainable city form. The compact town needs to allow for people preferring different lifestyles to cohabitate. The measures which need to be taken are as follows. Two types of conveniences need to be offered. One is easy access to urban services for daily life inside the town. This is a necessary condition for a town to be compact and needs to be provided for by planning at the beginning stage. The other is good transportation services to visit elsewhere to compensate for the lack of residents' needs inside the town. This is a necessary condition for residents to practice their preferred lifestyles and requires to be provided by planning mainly based on public investment. Residents preferring a suburban lifestyle were shown to be very sensitive to convenience of transportation probably because they depended much on public transportation for visiting elsewhere, especially city centers. Sustainable city forms often force people to change their means of transportation from cars to public transportation. That might induce people to make more of accessibility to such services. This requires much attention to a combination of transportation services within towns, to the town centers, and to outside the towns. No gaps were shown among those preferring different lifestyles both within each site and between the two sites in their levels of satisfaction with amenities and in the degree of their contribution to enhancement of livability. Thus, amenity was shown to be a crucial factor for bettering living environment and, also, to be easily produced by proper town planning in the suburbs. Since amenities are ultimately a competitive power against city centers, any housing development which lessens amenities should be avoided. Finally, community needs to be fostered for a long period. Preference for community varies greatly among residents, but town planning can support fostering it indirectly by providing facilities., 2, KJ00005094183}, pages = {1--46}, title = {Suggestions for Sustainable Forms in a Metropolis : A Study of Residents' Behaviors in Kobe City's Stagnant Suburbs}, year = {2007} }