RESIDENTS’ EVALUATION AND CONTINUITY IN THE CASE OF SHIKISHIMA OPEN GARDEN IN MAEBASHI CITY

Abstract

Living while feeling various green effects is considered an effective tool to adapt to the situation of declining population and the aging population or to live an environmentally friendly life. To realize this, it is necessary to have a green zone management policy through cooperation between the administration and residents. Particularly, open gardens (* OG) as one of the private greening areas are expected to have great effects on the viewpoint of town planning. In the task of OG, "trigger and form of activity", "increase
participants" and "increase awareness" are soft issues in sustainability. We thought that these could greatly influence the citizen's future activities. Therefore, we focused on this research. Therefore, to solve the above three major problems, this research grasped "situation of efforts by administrators and OG organizers in the case of OG of Maebashi City” and “perception of neighborhood residents' OG activities". The purpose of this research was to obtain basic knowledge for improvement of "issues for the sustainability". As a conclusion, "Shikishima OG" was not a limited activity of merely a favorite group, but more than half of the residents were recognized in the area around Shikishima Park. In addition, 80% of those inhabitants regarded positively as
"Shikishima OG contributes to local community development". Furthermore, we could grasp that "improvement of the landscape of the district" was the most expected by these inhabitants in terms of "community development".