Work

Street view diagnostics of inclusion and street quality gaps to guide governance in Tokyo

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Cities worldwide struggle to advance SDG 11 because street-level built environments often lag behind social inclusion, while city-scale indicators rarely detect these micro-scale mismatches. Aging populations and climate risk heighten the need for diagnostics that translate global targets into street actions. The research builds such a diagnostic in Tokyo, contrasting a Street-Space Quality (SQ) index from street-view imagery with a Social Inclusion (SI) index from census statistics. Metrics are computed on 100 m grids, aggregated to 1-km units, and compared via an SI–SQ rank difference (RD) to classify SI≫SQ, alignment, and SQ≫SI. From 2015–2024, Tokyo’s SQ reconfigures toward higher vitality but lower openness—sidewalk and façade permeability rise while greenness and sky-view stagnate—whereas SI strengthens in the core and western sub-centers but weakens along the bayside. RD maps show SI≫SQ expanding east/bayside and SQ≫SI shrinking yet persisting in the northwest, indicating asymmetric needs for SI-led versus SQ-led interventions; policy incentives concentrate in core districts. Beyond Tokyo, RD serves as a portable, decision-ready metric for near-real-time SDG 11 tracking, cross-city benchmarking, and prioritizing street improvements and service deployment where inclusion and space quality are out of sync. The framework is transferable to other cities and can be aggregated upward to inform official SDG 11 reporting.

Source: npj Urban Sustainability

DOI: 10.1038/s42949-026-00412-2