ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to contribute to emerging debates and global debates about sustainable urbanization in Japan. It examines some distinctive features of Tokyo's urbanization and land management. The chapter outlines several positive aspects of Japanese urbanization patterns with respect to environmental sustainability. It describes recent trends that reduce the environmental sustainability of Japanese cities. In many ways Japanese metropolitan areas are exemplary on sustainability grounds. They incorporate many of the features widely promoted by those arguing for more sustainable patterns of urban development, including high levels of transit use, high densities of population, and high levels of mixed-use development. The chapter also examines the major issues that must be addressed in order to contribute to greater environmental sustainability of the Tokyo metropolitan region. It provides a discussion on the patterns of development at the scale of the metropolitan region, which shows changes in population density in each municipality in the TMA from 1970 to 1995.
