Professor Kazuaki MIYAMOTO Chair of the Organizing Committee, CUPUM'03 Sendai

Mr. Hajimu FUJII, Mayor of Sendai, Professor Takashi YOSHIMOTO, President of Tohoku University, Professor Richard E. KLOSTERMAN, Chair of CUPUM Board of Directors, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Japan has spectacular mountains such as Fujiyama but beauty has its price: earth tremors and earthquakes are a feature of life here. Yesterday, in Sendai, there was a large earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale. It may have delayed some of you, and inconvenienced all of you. Nature can be awesome, but also beautiful. As I had sincerely hoped when organizing the conference for today, trees with new leaves and a fresh breeze fragrant with the flowers of May are also here to welcome you to Sendai. In the Japanese language Sendai is called "mori-no-miyako" – which translates as the City of Trees. Please have fond and lovely memories of the benign and pretty side of nature.

The Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University and the City of Sendai have jointly organized this conference, CUPUM ’03 Sendai: the 8th International Conference on Computers in Urban Planning and Urban Management from today for three days, here at the "sendai mediateque." It is my great pleasure, and honor, to warmly welcome you here today as the chair the Organizing Committee.

We set up "Information Technologies for Urban Sustainability and Prosperity" as the conference theme of CUPUM'03 Sendai. In developing countries, population explosion and too rapid urbanization are still going on and bringing about various urban problems. In industrialized countries, population growth seems to be saturated but on-going sub-urbanization is causing more complicated urban problems. On the other hand, various, and dramatic, developments have been reported in computer technologies both in hard and soft wares; GIS engines, remote sensing with 1m resolution, traceability by mobile telephone, integrated land-use and transport analysis, virtual reality, visualization, and so on. These developments have definitely contributed to make Urban Planning and Urban Management more effective and productive. Moreover, further information technologies will be more effective tools for us to cope with such various urban issues and problems that are emerging day by day in industrialized as well as developing countries. However, the technologies should be accompanied by a smart and humane wisdom, for we always confront with a real city and with real people. Sustainability is one of the most important contemporary concepts but we should aim as well at prosperity all with the help of smart and humane information technologies.

During this 3-day conference, we have programmed 123 paper presentations and an invited lecture by Prof. Atsuyuki OKABE, as well as a special lecture by Prof. Michael WEGENER. We welcome around 160 participants from more than 20 countries and areas.

For years, CUPUM has been a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange technologies and wisdom at the forefront in computer applications in urban planning and urban management. I hope this conference - the 8th conferences of CUPUM - will honor this tradition and contribute to this world and urban areas in the same way that previous conferences have done.

I selected this time of the year as the very best to visit Japan. It is one of the best seasons in Sendai, and participants can enjoy fresh green leaves, pleasant weather and delicious fresh food. I also consulted with other members of the CUPUM Board of Directors on the academic schedule in their countries. If we think only in terms of university sessions and breaks, July or August would have been better. However, even in Sendai, which is located to the north of Japan, it is hot and humid in summer. I wanted to avoid such uncomfortable season. As for the venue, I asked Mr. Tanisawa, Director General of Urban Planning Bureau, City of Sendai, to make the arrangement for us to use this building, even though this building seldom accepts bookings for this kind of conference. I thought that participants would like the choice of the "sendai mediateque," for it is unique and world famous. It also faces Jyozenji Street in downtown Sendai, that is now covered by the fresh green leaves. I am very satisfied with the timing and the venue.

Unfortunately, it is definitely the worst timing from the viewpoint of SARS issues to have an international conference. First of all, I would like to express my deep appreciation and respect to the former registrants who kindly accepted my request to withdraw from this conference. Their thoughtful decisions have really made this conference feasible. Among them, Prof. Anthony YEH, a member of CUPUM Board of Directors and the founder of CUPUM as the host of the first CUPUM conference in Hong Kong, kindly proposed his withdrawal at an early stage of the SARS outbreak. Without his kind offer, I don’t think I would have been able to manage the preparations for this conference. I would like to ask all of you who are attending here, to join me to thank them as “absent friends” for their thoughtful decisions.

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to many persons and organizations who have helped in the preparation. I included all the names in the lists in the conference brochure to express my sincere thanks for their kind support and help. Among them, I would especially like to express my appreciation to Prof. Richard E. KLOSTERMAN, Chair of the CUPUM Board of Directors, for his continuous support and kind concern, and to Prof. Eihan SHIMIZU and Dr. Tkakashi UCHIDA, chair and vice-chair of the Program Committee, who kindly completed all the academic matters for the conference with the members. The members of the Preparation Team, and my students, helped me in the preparation of the conference. I am deeply grateful to them for their enormous help.

Last but not the least, as a member of the CUPUM Board of Directors, I express my sincere thanks to the City of Sendai and to Tohoku University who have accepted my request to host this conference.

Everybody here is expecting hot and fruitful discussions on the most advanced research products or on-going development projects to be presented during the following sessions. In addition to the academic sessions, we have prepared some social events and entertainment. I hope all of the participants will enjoy staying here and going around Sendai and the vicinities with us.

Thank you very much.

Professor Richard KLOSTERMAN Chair of the CUPUM Board of Directors

It is my genuine pleasure to welcome you to the Eighth International Conference on Computers in Urban Planning and Urban Management, CUPUM'03 Sendai. This year's conference is being hosted by Professor Kazuaki Miyamoto and his colleagues at the Center for Northeast Asian Studies at Tohoku University with the support of the City of Sendai. They have done an excellent job of organizing the conference and I am confident that it will be one of the best ones we've ever had.

As you may know, the CUPUM conferences were started Professor Anthony Gar-On Yeh, who hosted the first CUPUM conference at the University of Hong Kong in 1989. The people who attended the conference thought it was such a good conference decided that it should be held on a regular basis. Since then, the CUPUM conference has been held at Oxford, UK (1991); Atlanta, Georgia, USA (1993), Melbourne, Australia (1995), Bombay, India (1997), Venice Italy (1999), and Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (2001). Plans are already underway to hold the conference in Europe in 2005; in the United States in 2007; and then again in Hong Kong in 2009, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the first CUPUM conference.

Over the years, the CUPUM conferences have featured a wide range of excellent papers that have helped shape the use of computers and related information technologies in urban planning and management around the world. I am confident that this year’s conference will do the same.

Thank you for coming to CUPUM'03 Sendai and helping make it a success. Please join me in thanking Professor Miyamoto and the Conference Organizing Committee, and Professor Eihan Shimizu and the Program Committee, for all the work they have done to make it an informative and enjoyable experience for us all.

Professor Takashi YOSHIMOTO President of Tohoku University

Mr. Hajimu FUJII, Mayor of Sendai, Professor Richard E. KLOSTERMAN, Chair of CUPUM Board of Directors, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is my great pleasure to warmly welcome you to here Sendai for the 8th International Conference on Computers in Urban Planning and Urban Management, CUPUM'03 Sendai. As introduced, I am the President of Tohoku University. The Center for Northeast Asian Studies, one of the organizers of this Conference, is part of our university.

Seasons of the year are of special importance in Japanese culture. I am very happy that you are able to visit Sendai in the best season of the year. We call the month of May "Satsuki" in old Japanese. The word has many pleasant images; for example, fresh green leaves and clear blue skies. It is also the month of the "Festival for Boys" when we prey for the health and welfare of our children.

I heard that CUPUM has a rather long tradition of 14 years and this is the 8th conference. Computer technologies have dramatically improved and developed their application fields. I believe that there have been many innovative developments experienced in the field of urban planning and management. My area of specialization is brain surgery. In the field of Medicine, many kinds of diagnostics and treatments have become feasible with computer technologies. In my mind, I see participants of CUPUM as medical doctor for cities. I hope the computer developments you will be discussing here will save the cities, much the same way as computers have done for human patients in medical treatments.

Please allow me to introduce Tohoku University briefly. Tohoku University was founded in 1907 as the third Imperial University in Japan. Today, the University comprises of 10 undergraduate schools, 14 graduate schools, 5 research institutes, and many other educational and research centers and facilities. There are nearly 5,000 faculty and staff members, and 17,000 students on five campuses. Of this student body about 3,500 are women students and 1,000 are international students coming from more than 60 countries around the world.

Tohoku University has adopted "Research First" and "Open-door" policies as the spirit of its foundation. In accordance with these policies, each school or institute has been in friendly rivalry and grown together. Through the university-wide efforts, Tohoku University has endeavored to become one of leading universities in Japan, as well as in the world.

In 2001 the University Council established three fundamental policies based on the university's long history and tradition; "Research-intensive University" as its mission, "Open University to the World and Community" as its principle and "Development of Leading Human Resources" as its educational goal. In order to fulfill these policies, the faculty and staff members are aggressively pursuing reformative projects.

In 2007 Tohoku University will mark the 100th anniversary of its foundation. We, the staff of Tohoku University, consider it our responsibility to ensure that these policies reach full fruition, whilst constantly striving to improve the appeal of the university.

I have to tell you also a little about the Center for Northeast Asian Studies, CNEAS. CNEAS was established in 1996 for the purpose of promoting area studies into the Northeast Asian region, including East Asia, North Asia and Japan. This region serves as a point of contact between some of the world's major countries, such as America, Russia, China and Japan, but it is inflicted with a number of problems, such as the deepening effects of the cold war that played a major role in the 20th century, the fact that the entire region is a cause of resource and environmental problems, the fact that there is little clarification between races despite the wide range of tribes and peoples residing in the area, and a certain number of international hotspots, such as the Korean Peninsular and the Taiwan Straits.

With the background, CNEAS has three major objectives (1) The development of new methodologies to implement regional studies, (2) Academic studies to understand and clarify regional circumstances and condition, and (3) The creation of a database and returning the results of our research to society. Professor Miyamoto’s Laboratory provides Geographical Information Systems and applications as a soft infrastructure for the area studies to complement urban modeling and infrastructure planning.

Since our campuses are very close from here, 'sendai mediateque', please visit a campus to see our faculty members. Please feel free to ask the secretariat staff to arrange an appointment.

I hope you will take back home fruitful academic souvenirs as well as happy memories of Sendai and surrounds.

Thank you very much.

Mr.Hajimu FUJII Mayor of Sendai

On behalf of Sendai 's one million citizens, and as one of the conference organizers, I would like to warmly welcome you all to Sendai.

I would like to briefly introduce Sendai to those of you who are visiting our city for the first time.

The samurai warrior, Date Masamune, carved Sendai into a planned city out of the isolated wilderness. This clear-cut grand design remains as the foundation of the city today. We have built upon this foundation, and are generally promoting urban planning that prioritizes the environment.

In 1945, an air raid burned down many residential forests that were covering the urban area, and Sendai lost its urban landscape that was called the "City of Trees." However, the city succeeded in major land readjustment projects and created tree-lined streets with large quantities of greenery in the central business district, which had been burnt to ashes. Sendai also succeeded in organizing the development of the Hirose-gawa river basin, preserving its pristine waters and natural environment.

As a result of the urbanization that occurred in Japan from the 1960s, Sendai, like other cities, has seen a population shift towards suburban areas. However, we have been able to prevent the central business district from hollowing out. Many citizens still live in the central business district, and our shopping areas are full of activity. This situation is rather rare in Japan and may be similar to the situation in European cities.

Sendai is now promoting sustainable urban planning that further prioritizes the environment. Our city was the first city in Japan to use a "compact city" grand design. We are limiting suburban development and improving our public transportation system in order to prevent excessive reliance on cars. In the future, we would like to transform extra lanes on roads into belts of greenery.

Our citizen support was the main force that made the success of Sendai’s various urban plans a reality. I believe consensus-building will become even more important in future urban planning because it is impossible to realize sustainable development, a major issue for future cities, solely through simple economic efficiency or administrative efforts.

I believe econometrical methods will play an important role in achieving this goal, by solving problems with complex variables and generating a clear image of Sendai’s urban planning. In this perspective, my expectations for CUPUM’s future activities are quite high.

I hope that this conference will yield fruitful results and that you will enjoy your stay in Sendai.