As urbanization accelerates, almost every country is facing unprecedented challenges such as pollution, traffic congestion, and waste management. Japan, as a resource-limited island nation, has actively promoted smarter and more sustainable cities since 2009. Among its examples, Kanagawa has gained recognition for an “enterprise-led, multi-party participation” model and was selected as one of Japan’s strongest sustainable smart communities.
Kanagawa: An Enterprise-Led Smart City
Fujisawa City in Kanagawa is located in the southwest of the Kanto region. The site was originally a Panasonic television factory. In 2010, the Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town project was officially signed.
The development blueprint of Fujisawa Smart Town is divided into four stages: construction, growth, maturity, and evolution. The plan is expected to continue until 2108, covering a full 100-year period.
This future community was jointly built by 19 enterprises and organizations, including Panasonic as the lead, with support from Mitsui Fudosan, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, NTT East, Keio University, Fujisawa City Government, and others. It brings together industry, government, and academia.
Project development costs were deducted from the general housing budget, while operating costs were shared among the companies. Panasonic contributed half, Mitsui contributed 30%, and the remaining costs were shared by other partner companies.
By 2022, Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town had received nearly ten awards. It became the only municipality among Japan’s 47 prefectures to receive both the “SDGs Future City” and “Local Government SDGs Model Project” recognition from the Cabinet Office. The prefectural governor also spoke at the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development at the United Nations headquarters in New York, gaining international recognition.
Starting From Daily Life and Improving It With Technology
Many countries treat 5G, IoT, and similar infrastructure as the core of smart city development. Fujisawa, however, is a people-centred sustainable smart town. It places the lifestyle of residents first, followed by town design, and then infrastructure such as housing, energy, and information technology.
For this reason, Fujisawa Smart Town mainly develops across three levels: infrastructure, spatial planning and design, and technology services. It aims to achieve environmental, energy, and safety goals, including lower carbon emissions, reduced water use, higher renewable energy usage, and enough emergency supplies for at least three days after a disaster.
To improve residents’ lives further, the town provides five services: energy management, safety and security, mobility, healthcare, and community management.
For energy management, each detached home is equipped with solar power, storage batteries, fuel cells, and a home energy management system, allowing residents to produce, store, and save energy.
For safety and security, the community uses LED sensor streetlights that automatically adjust brightness based on conditions and work with surveillance cameras to monitor the community. Each home also has security equipment and fire alarms.
For mobility, the town provides convenient transport networks, supports non-drivers, and encourages greener driving habits. For healthcare, it introduces regional care systems and brings IT into healthcare, care services, and medication management to manage residents’ health and treatment information in real time.
For community management, the town promotes quality of life by helping residents build person-to-person networks and enjoy a more harmonious community life.
Lessons From Japan’s Smart City Development
A major feature of Japan’s smart city model is that it is enterprise-led. The Kanagawa government uses contracts and outsourcing to give leadership in smart community construction to well-known Japanese companies, including real estate developers, automakers, high-tech companies, and energy suppliers. This allows each company to use its industry strengths to plan the city with smart concepts.
At the same time, the Japanese government understands that no single enterprise can complete the work alone. Local government continues to provide policy direction, funding support, maintenance support, and other assistance. Once a smart community model becomes mature, the government can copy successful cases to nearby regions and gradually expand smart city development nationwide.
Hong Kong has high-level research talent and should make good use of its strengths. It should formulate long-term policies and encourage public R&D organizations, businesses, and universities to play more active roles in improving the smart city industry ecosystem and creating new momentum for future development.
Translation supported by AI.