"FutureCity" Initiative
The Japanese Government has been promoting the FutureCity Initiative in anticipation of the future worldwide trend toward urbanization. The aim is to create the urban city and community with the sustainable economic and social system that can respond to the issues of aging and the environment. Once a city is chosen as a FutureCity, to be a community to meet the shared human challenges of the environment and aging, it will develop pioneering projects to realize the dream of a community that is continuously creating environmental, social and economic values, a community everyone wants to live, and a community where everyone is empowered.
Eco-Model City
The Eco-Model City has been promoted since 2008. This low carbon city is promoted as a part of the same initiative and supports the foundation of the FutureCity Initiative. The government has selected as Eco-Model Cities those cities that are working on high but achievable goals, making pioneering efforts to realize the low-carbon society. This is to clearly show the low-carbon society in practice that Japan should aim at in the future. The first thirteen cities were selected in 2008. After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, energy issues received close attention. Seven cities were selected in 2012 and three cities in 2013 to promote the effort to realize a low-carbon society nationwide. Each of these communities is making maximum use of local resources and taking a crosscutting approach that goes beyond stakeholder boundaries to establish local models for carbon reduction and sustainable development.
