GIS: A Method for Analysis of Urban Safety and Environmental Design

In Japan, where the earthquake occurs frequently, natural disasters are important in urban planning. However, it is clear that the cities of Japan, with the exception of a few, have not been designed without providing any clear picture of urban safety definition based on previous studies on natural hazards. For the Japanese people who are plagued by many earthquakes throughout history, it is necessary to provide an image of the future of the city's form in terms of urban safety. On the other hand, recent computer technology has been able to improve the real-time control system after the Northridge earthquake in 1994 and that of Kobe in 1995. In this paper, a method of analyzing and designing a city based on urban safety perspective is emphasized. This method is called the MUSE, based on the Lynch’s 1961 theory of urban appearance, and some of the city's physical elements are defined as part of an organic system. Using the 3D Arc / View analysis, we can easily simulate the city in a visual fashion, and this is the action that took a long way to go through by the previous models. The authors have created vulnerable functions. (Moreau and Yamazaki, 1999) and proposed a method for assessing the risk of building collapse. (Moreau and Yamazaki, 2000). The use of these methods of urban safety assessments with MUSE is useful for risk assessment system. However, combination of MUSE with recent technology will be realized in the future.