Research Institute for High-Life

Investigating the value of urban living 2010
Report summary

1.Background and purpose of study

The purpose of this study is to determine the types of value urban residents see in relation to what aspects of their town or where in town they live. In terms of the value of towns, many books with rankings of towns people want to live in have been published, but the indices serving as the basis for calculations are often economic indices, such as land price and rent, or indices that quantitatively evaluate the environment in terms of equipment and facilities, such as the number of facilities per unit of population or gross floor area of households. Needless to say, although these indices are useful for calculating rankings because they allow for quantitative comparisons, environments that residents find attractive are not limited to size or economic evaluations, and considerations of whether they can live comfortably (that is, the quality of town) are important.
While keeping in mind these issues, this study aims to: individually interview urban residents using an “Evaluation Grid Method” to ask about where in their towns they like or consider good, and why; clarify the structure of evaluations of areas based on the opinions of residents; and propose physical environments or factors that should be provided to create towns that make residents want to stay.

2. Research team

This study was conducted under the following research system.

・Research planning and coordination
Masashi SOEDA (LLP Human Environment Design Laboratory, Ground Planner, PhD (Engineering))

・Research and survey planning, design, and administration and analysis
Naoko WAKABAYASHI Living Environment Studio ACT Inc., CEO, PhD (Engineering))

・Research supervisor
Shinichi, SENTODA (Research Institute for High-Life, Senior Researcher)

3. Study method

In this study, we conducted a survey of individual interviews based on the “Evaluation Grid Method” as a method for structurally understanding the “true needs” that individual urban residents seek for areas and locations by associating these needs with specific locations and elements. The “Evaluation Grid Method” is an interview method that has been improved and developed based on interview methods developed in the field of clinical psychology and is widely used to understand a variety of needs (requests) associated with environment, etc. The premise of this method is the “Personal Construct Theory”, which posits that human beings “each have a unique ‘cognitive structure’, which is a mechanism of understanding and judgment, and they try to understand external information obtained through sight, sound, and other senses by processing information with this mechanism to determine the actions they should take and predict outcomes.” The “cognitive structure” in this case is a “hierarchical structure” having specific understandings such as “a spacious or non-spacious skyline” at the bottom, sensory understandings such as “feels or does not feel liberating” in the middle, and more abstract value judgments such as “able to unable to relax” at the top. The Evaluation Grid Method can be described as a method aiming to selectively pick up only certain aspects (i.e., the “evaluation structure”) related to the surveyed “evaluation” within the individual cognitive structure.
In general procedures of the evaluation grid method, respondents are first asked to think about multiple subjects to determine “which one they like”, and are then asked for the reasons for their judgment criteria. In this study, however, we set the subjects that the respondents were asked to evaluate as “locations within their residential areas that they consider good and like” and asked for reasons such as “why they like it” and “why they consider it good” for each location determined as being “liked” and “good”. This was because we wanted to have the respondents pick several “locations that they consider good and like” and it was awkward to have the respondents rank these locations. In addition, we also asked whether the locations were used in their daily lives, whether they served as destinations, and whether they were one of the reasons why they liked their towns.
Assuming that evaluation structures vary between residential areas, we picked the Sangen-Jaya area in Setagaya ward (a location where commercial and residential areas, as well as new buildings and traditional downtown shopping districts coexist, and there is a mixture of both old and new houses and various shop sizes) and the Konan area in Minato ward (a new town where large-scale redevelopment is taking place; the number of high-rise apartments has recently been increasing and many residents are new to the area) as our surveyed areas that we believed to have different characteristics. In addition, taking differences in life stages into consideration, we included various generations, including seniors and nurturers, among the respondents.
We conducted surveys in the Konan areas in July and September of 2009 and in the Sangen-Jaya area in September and October. The interview survey was conducted by one interviewer and one note-taker, and we spent about one hour for each respondent.

Study on Healthy Food and Development of Generation-specific Food Education Support
Good Dietary Practices Change the Lives of the Elderly

Report summary

1. Purpose of the Study on Healthy Food and Development of Generation-specific Food Education Support

The Basic Act on Food Education was enacted in 2005, providing guidelines with objectives such as enabling citizens to achieve lifetime well-being and practice healthy eating habits, maintaining a proper food culture, and developing the ability to make judgments and adapt wisdom and knowledge on food.

The focus of lifestyle reform in Japan in the 21st century is on "well-being", "safety" and "environment conservation", and these issues have been successfully incorporated into policies such as "Proposals for Food Education" and "Improvement of Metabolic Syndrome".

However, efforts to help citizens to develop and adopt healthy eating habits and a healthy food culture have faced a wide range of challenges in providing specific directions for improving dietary habits, spreading food culture, and developing a focus on lifestyle.

Against this background, we planned and conducted a two-year study designed to facilitate the development of more timely and effective food education in order to support the national program to promote food education.

In promoting food education, there are significant differences in the issues faced by different generations. Last year, we conducted a study on households with infants or small children. This year, we continued our studies with a focus on the elderly based on the slogan, "Good dietary practices change the lives of the elderly".

Contents of the Research Report

Chapter1: Premises and Meaning of Discussions on Food Education for the Elderly
Chapter2: What is Food Education for the Elderly? Current Efforts, Guidelines and Proposals
Chapter 3: Directions in Food Education for the Elderly
Chapter4: The Framework for Understanding Food Education for the Elderly
Chapter5: Current Dietary Habits of the Elderly
Chapter6: Challenges and Approaches in Food Education for the Elderly from the Perspective of Good Dietary Practices
Chapter7: Proposals for Promoting Food Education for the Elderly
Attachment: Survey Report

Research Team

Research Institution: Research Institute for High-Life

Research team: The study was conducted by:
Shigeyuki Niitsu (Director and Graduate School Professor, Takachiho University)
Toshiaki Tanno (Executive Director, Behavioral Science Institute)
Haruki Takatsu (Senior Director, Research Institute for High-Life), et al.

2. Overview of this Survey Report

This survey report consists of the following 7 chapters and an overview. The following is a summary of the report.


Chapter 1: Premises and Meaning of Food Education for the Elderly

This chapter describes the current situation in Japan as an aging society based on currently published data and clearly states the need for food education for the elderly. The targeted age group and focus of the study are specified, and the meaning of research on food education for the elderly is clearly explained.

In 2008, the Research Institute for High-Life conducted and published the results of a study focusing on households with infants or small children, the first in a series of studies on generation-specific approaches in food education. This year, the Institute continued with the second part of its generation-specific research, targeting the age groups of 55 to 64 year olds (the elderly-to-be; this group includes the baby boomer generation that will comprise the real aging society in the future) and 65 to 74 year olds (the elderly).

In conducting the study, an objective review on current food education targeting the elderly and elderly-to-be led to these observations:

(1) Currently, the elderly practice ideal, traditional Japanese eating habits, and there does not seem to be a great need for food education;
(2) The elderly seem to face greater issues in areas other than food education;
(3) The development of food education includes few approaches targeting the elderly.

These observations raised the question as to whether the current approach in food education for the elderly is appropriate. This led to the hypothesis that we need to consider and approach food education not simply as eating activities but from a wider perspective.

As society in Japan ages, considerations of "food education for the elderly" will go beyond discussions of actions targeting the elderly. This will lead to the establishment of approaches in food education that tackle various issues caused by a range of changes in lifestyle. Examples include the changes in household structure caused by the continuously aging society.

Although based on the concept and premise of generation-specific approaches in food education, this study also targeted the age group of 55 to 64 year olds (the elderly-to-be). This is because we aim to provide proposals for the promotion of and directions for food education for this group using the elderly group of 65 to 74 year olds as a benchmark. We took an inside-out perspective in our research activity rather than the outside-in perspective traditionally used for formulating policy.

Research on the "Tidying-up" Activities of Infants
- As the first step in research on "growing children" and "goods and lives of people" -



Chapter 1 Research Overview

1-1 Motive for research

This is a joint research project conducted by Nagisa Tatsumi and Ayumi Kimura, both official members of the Association of Child Environment Studies.

As a professional writer and educator, Tatsumi has been working on the theses, "What is an affluent life?" and "What do household and household chores mean?" Kimura has worked as an educator in an elementary school, preschool and childcare center while continuing his research on the development of children.

Tatsumi is interested in both "goods" as part of one’s lifestyle and the relation between "goods" and people, while Kimura is interested in both childcare centers and preschools as an environment for the development of children and guaranteed quality childcare and play, resulting in the formation of a thesis on "tidying-up" and its importance, in their respective fields of interest. This has lead to the planning of this joint research project.

While registered as university lecturers, Tatsumi and Kimura are more practitioners than researchers. For both, finding such a thesis in this popular research field has a significant meaning.

Each explains their motives for their research below before mentioning the purpose of this research project.

1-1-1 Motive for research (Tatsumi)

What are goods to people? This is a significant thesis that Tatsumi has been pursuing.
Recently, people’s interest in storage skills has increased (*). A new business offering clean-up services and storage solutions to consumers has emerged and started securing customers. Although similar to conventional clean-up services, these services are different in terms of demand.

Members of households (or consumers) now face a significant issue (or challenge) of how to deal with the goods that they themselves have brought into their household or that have been brought in by others.

(*) Moreover, a current increase in interest can be seen in organizing skills as idea and information management skills. Not only is an abundance of information available from the Internet and other sources, but individuals also continue to be the providers of information. This requires skill in selecting information and utilizing the pool of information through, for instance, the control of access routes to necessary information.

In a nutshell, Japanese living in modern times appear unable to find an efficient way to deal with "goods (e.g. means and materials)" and are forced to live their daily lives in frustration.
A common opinion that "In modern times, people are spoiled by goods" is often heard, but this abundance (and variety) of goods in a market economy may not be the problem. Rather, the challenge may be the necessity for people to set their criteria for dealing with goods right from the start in order to be able to select goods to be used and arrange their own house.

The "goods" comprising one's life are not mere objects. In the lives of individuals, "goods are the means to living" and constitute even life itself. In a modern society with a wide variety of goods, "one’s choices represent one’s values in life" and reflect a certain lifestyle.

Tatsumi strongly feels that, for people in modern times to be satisfied with their lives, they need the skill to create such a relationship with goods that reflects their own values in life (or even philosophies).

Against this background, a contemporary but fundamental thesis of "tidying-up" has been created.

Tidying-up can be defined as:

(1) the result of a decision regarding what "I" bring into my house or my living space as well as the constant process of asking oneself whether or not "I" utilize what was brought in (i.e., "I" made a right decision bringing it in);
(2) the process of creating an order (or system) for determining how "goods" that carry a significant meaning as manifestations of one's values in life (or, in a childcare context, manifestations of a school’s educational philosophy) are arranged in the settings of our lives;
(3) the process of creating a cycle (or rules) regarding how the goods are to be dealt with over time, and
(4) the process of creating and maintaining the details of activities (or systems) and activities (or rules) in households and communities such as educational institutions, which involves a certain responsibility (or moral/manner) as a community member.

However, "tidying-up" as a thesis is only acknowledged or received as a momentary target of interest, a somewhat boring aspect of life, or an ordinary issue faced by housewives or people working at a particular workplace. There is no discussion (or idea) as to "what goods individuals should possess in their everyday lives" and "how individuals should create an order and cycle in their everyday lives". It appears that little research on this topic has been undertaken in the past.

In the fields of economics and sociology, there is some research that discusses "the relationship between people and goods," with a focus on "purpose of consumption." Most notable are the concepts of "showing-off" by Veblen and "signs of differentiation" by Baudrillard. However, they approach the issue from the viewpoint of materials and do not really treat the goods as a reflection of a created lifestyle or values in one's life. This may be because the U.S. and Europe have advanced further in their research on "consumption."

Tatsumi finds it rather interesting that the fundamental thesis of "what goods are to people" today appears not as a question in a positive sense, that is, "why one wants to obtain or possess goods" (or desire), but as a question in a negative sense, that is, "why the existence of goods causes problems"

This year, tidying-up is approached in primary research, and some of the hypotheses and issues will be used as a basis for further study.

1-1-2 Motive for research (Kimura)

Today, words such as "let's not waste (or mottainai)" or "eco" have become clichés, but even without these words being expressed, it is extremely important to live and improve the relationship between goods and people in societies with a high level of consumption.

From ancient times until a few decades ago, people utilized goods more efficiently than today. For instance, recycled materials are often excavated from ancient houses and rice paddy fields from the Yayoi period. Food was not wasted and almost all segments of food items were used wisely. People efficiently used goods in their lives. However, it appears that over the last few decades, such a history involving people and goods has been somewhat lost. Naturally, a number of people have joined a resistance to this course of change and continue to make a range of attempts to halt it.

Such events occur not only in adult society, but also among children. Although it has been long argued that people are no longer attached to their belongings, this may be due to the weakening relationship between each good and an individual. Weak connections with communities, changes in household composition, and shifts in society through individualism all prevent people from feeling a strong urge to set and follow rules for collectively maintaining order. This seems to have created a number of problems in providing childcare every day. The ultimate issue among these may be "tidying-up".

Although it has been long discussed, the issue of "tidying-up" in childcare centers has yet to see any solution being widely adopted. There are a number of references and research papers, but as far as the authors are aware, none of these take on a perspective of how individuals create order and cycles in their everyday lives, as pointed out by Tatsumi, a researcher in this particular field. From the viewpoint of childcare environments, further studies are required in regard to most issues such as the effects of psychological environments involving childcare providers, children, and parents, the relationship between the characteristics of children and the arrangement of goods, awareness of storage, and the relationship between forms of childcare and "tidying-up".

The intention here is to take the first step towards an overall thesis of "goods and the lives of people" by understanding the current situation and building a hypothesis through the observation, research and analysis, and interviews regarding the "tidying-up" activities of children in childcare centers.