A Multiscale Regenerative Design Approach Toward Transformative Capacities: The Case of Shimokitazawa, Tokyo

Abstract

Regenerative design (RD) is attracting attention as a concept that goes beyond sustainability. However, RD has been criticized as an overly theoretical and abstract approach. This study constructs a multiscale RD approach in urban areas by combining the theoretical frameworks of an adaptive planning approach based on the complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory and transformative capacities (TC) through the case study of Shimokita-Senrogai. The study’s main contribution is to materialize the process for a multiscale RD approach in urban areas, where it is difficult to reach consensus among diverse stakeholders immediately. The main finding is identifying the necessary conditions for implementing an RD approach that enhances TC by adapting to urban uncertainties from global climate change to local civic dynamics through the agency of more-than-human actor networks. Based on these, this study proposes a methodology to visualize actors, their activity ranges, bases, and ecosystemic flows across multiple territorial scales beyond the development site and its vicinity.

1. Introduction

Regenerative design (RD) is attracting attention as a concept that goes beyond sustainability [1]. Over time, sustainability paradigms have evolved from meeting human needs to improving human well-being and viability of ecological systems. More recently, the paradigm of regeneration has emerged, which aims to not only sustain but also actively regenerate social and ecological systems, thereby fostering thriving and dynamic living environments [2]. However, RD has been criticized as an overly theoretical and abstract approach [3].

One of the key conceptual tensions lies in RD’s dual orientation toward both adaptation and transformation. From an adaptive perspective, Du Plessis’s framework emphasizes design strategies based on adaptation, resilience, and regeneration that intentionally engage with a living world [4]. Meanwhile, some studies have examined the concept of transformative capacities (TC), including a multiscale perspective, referring to RD [5,6]. This ambivalence contradicts the current trends in climate change research. Indeed, adaptation strategies have thus far failed to meet global climate governance goals, such as the 1.5 °C target outlined in the Paris Agreement, thereby heightening the risks of cascading and potentially catastrophic climate impacts [7,8]. Consequently, scholarly attention has shifted toward transformation as a means of addressing the root causes of climate risk and systemic unsustainability.

However, urban planning and development must contend with a wider spectrum of uncertainties such as demographic shifts, socio-political instability, and economic volatility, not limited to climate change. Within this broader context, an adaptive planning approach grounded in the complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory has explored the conditions that enable cities to respond effectively to such dynamic and unpredictable environments [9]. Given the multiplicity of actors and interests involved in urban areas, it is virtually impossible for all stakeholders to align from the outset around a singular vision of transformation. Therefore, an adaptive approach that responds to evolving activities and emerging actors is necessary. Incremental urban development has recently emerged as a dominant planning approach in many contexts [10]. However, within this adaptive framing, we may still inquire under what conditions can transformative change emerge through adaptive planning.

The Shimokita-Senrogai project in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, offers a compelling empirical basis for exploring how RD can realize transformation through adaptation in response to multiple scales of uncertainty, not limited to climate change. In Japan, citizen-led initiatives are referred to as machizukuri, a term that combines machi (community) and zukuri (making), representing an ongoing effort to improve both the physical and social dimensions of urban environments through community participation [11]. Japanese machizukuri, based on experiences such as natural disasters, is considered a globally significant approach that leverages emergent and self-organizing civic movements to adapt to uncertainty and drive transformative urban regeneration [12]. While machizukuri cases are biased to social aspects [12], the Shimokita-Senrogai project constructed a linear green infrastructure featuring nature-based solutions (NbS) such as rain gardens. Through this, it embodied the RD’s view of humans as an integral part of nature [13]. Conceptualized as a “servant development,” Shimokita-Senrogai adopted an adaptive planning model that placed previously self-organized civic activities at the center of the redevelopment process [14]. For example, local actors such as Shimokita-Engeibu, which manage local green spaces, have actively shaped and sustained the district’s transformation process. Thus, Shimokita-Senrogai represents a good practice for enhancing TC through adaptive responses to multiscale uncertainties, from global climate change to local civic dynamics.

Therefore, this study aims to construct a multiscale RD approach for urban development by integrating an adaptive planning framework based on the CAS theory with the theoretical lens of TC. Specifically, by identifying the processes and enabling conditions through which adaptive urban development enhances TC, this study seeks to materialize RD as a concrete and context-sensitive planning approach in urban areas.

2. Theoretical Background and Analytical Framework

2.1. Adaptive Planning Approach Based on CAS Theory

This section reviews and integrates relevant theories for the analytical framework of this study. Regarding the adaptive planning approach, Rauws and De Roo [9] provided a theoretical foundation by situating the CAS theory within it and identifying the conditions that enable urban adaptability. They distinguish four key properties: non-linear development trajectories, responsiveness to dynamic environments, self-organization, and co-evolution. According to the CAS theory, self-organization is a key property through which systems self-innovate and self-stabilize in response to changing circumstances. In the context of cities, this includes the rise in new structures, patterns, and organizations within an urban system, which is a result of interactions between actors without external coordination. Moreover, co-evolution implies a mutual adaptation process between urban systems (and non-urban systems), including systems related both horizontally (e.g., other cities) and hierarchically (e.g., urban regions or neighborhoods). Such co-evolutionary processes may involve the spatial configuration of an urban area and its institutional arrangements.

Regarding enabling conditions, first, non-linear development trajectories require planners and other stakeholders to embrace uncertainty as a fundamental aspect of urban development [14]. Concretely, they require planners to create institutional arrangements and spatial designs, which support various future configurations while guaranteeing basic rights [15,16].

Second, responsive urban systems require enhanced maneuverability, thereby leveraging the unique qualities of the system relative to neighboring systems [17]. This implies that planners should coordinate the active exploration of alternative development trajectories. Flexible project boundaries, experiments, and trend watching can facilitate such exploration [18,19,20]. Additionally, the awareness of other stakeholders regarding an area’s distinctive characteristics and how they can use these characteristics to connect to potential future states must be strengthened [17,21]. Planners can support this process by combining inspiring visioning with a pragmatic development approach to exploit unexpected or planned opportunities [15].

Third, self-organization in urban systems is facilitated by conditions that allow local initiators to collaborate based on their own motivations and interests, thereby enabling them to launch projects on a manageable scale for non-professional planners [21,22]. Planners can encourage this in at least three ways: (1) by creating fora for interaction and mobilizing creative minds, strategists, and visionaries [20,23], (2) by devising institutional frameworks and spatial designs that support small-scale projects [24], and (3) by considering citizens as co-creators of the city who should be able to understand and contribute to the rules and regulations that guide urban development [25].

Finally, co-evolution is supported by spatial and institutional frameworks that allow for incremental or modular development, thus increasing opportunities for mutual adaptation between systems [18,20]. Attention to systematic learning by both planning authorities and project initiators can support the successful inheritance of these system characteristics, ensuring that a system fits with changes in neighboring systems and adjusts the characteristics that constrain this process [26].

2.2. Transformative Capacities in Urban Development

Since transformation is non-linear and does not have an endpoint, it is critical that actors within the system have the capacity to continuously engage in and shape the transformation process [27]. TC can be developed at individual, organizational, and societal scales as well as in relation to biophysical or socio-ecological and economic systems [6]. Hestad [6] proposes three foundational TC: socio-ecological reconnection; fostering healthy individuals and political agency; and building rich community relationships and social cohesion. First, regarding socio-ecological reconnection, reconnecting with what sustains us as human beings has been recognized as an imperative for long term sustainability [28,29], both with natural systems that, for instance, provide food and water but also man-made life support systems that, for example, provide energy [5]. Socio-ecological reconnection has been deemed a basic precondition for learning how to leverage transformations in socio-ecological systems [30]. This aspect of TC resonates with NbS which is theorized co-evolutionary technology [31].

Second, in terms of fostering healthy individuals and political agency, agency can be understood as the ability of people to impact and influence their world, either intentionally through choices or via the unintended consequences of their (bounded rationality) actions. Transformations toward regeneration can be significantly accelerated if healthy individual agency is enacted as “everyone is part of a system, and everyone has a sphere of influence” (O’Brien, 2018, p. 158) [32]. Political agency refers to people’s “capacity to positively influence the collective future through transformative change” (O’Brien, 2015, p. 1170) [33].

Third, regarding building rich community relationships and social cohesion, social cohesion and inclusion can promote environmental conservation through generating strong social networks, which can help build resilience to climate-related stress [34], generate reciprocity and trust which increases well-being [35], and influence pro-environmental attitudes [36]. A key feature of practices aimed at supporting social cohesion is an orientation toward the common good, and intangible and historical assets composed of collective and individual civic rights and responsibilities which citizens feel the need to protect and constantly renew and extend [37].

TC assessment on a scale-by-scale basis is imperative. Some research on TC points out the limitation of organizations in cultivating these three capabilities beyond the community scale [6]. This limitation may have a detrimental effect on the development of TC at the urban scale. In order to fully grasp the role of organizations in larger urban contexts, it is also pointed out that it is imperative to examine the broader strategies and social movements of organizations. Consequently, in the context of urban development, it becomes imperative to assess TC at scales that go beyond the conventional scope of development. In this case, it is necessary to include the broader strategies and activities of actors, including the development agency, in the analysis. The present study aims to contribute to this body of knowledge by evaluating the development of multiscale TC for urban development and the activities of other stakeholders.

2.3. Key Premises and Phases in Regenerative Design

There are four key premises of RD [38]: place and potential, regenerative capacity, partnering with place, and progressive harmonization. Among these, the concepts of place and potential form the foundational entry points. In RD, projects begin with the richest possible understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of a specific place, seeking to uncover latent potential for enhancing the health and viability of that place through human presence and engagement. Here, place is not merely a static location, but is understood as a living system or entity—an intricate, multilayered, and evolving network composed of both natural and human ecosystems within a defined geographic region. Natural ecosystems include wildlife and vegetation, local climate, minerals and other deposits, soil, water, and geologic structures, which themselves include distinctive customs, expression of values, economic activities, forms of association, ideas for education, traditions, physical artifacts such as buildings, and constructed infrastructure [39,40]. By grounding a project in this nuanced and patterned understanding of place, designers can formulate a vision that not only aligns with, but also amplifies, the place’s intrinsic potential. Through place-based visioning, even small interventions can lead to large systemic transformations. This illustrates how RD seeks to work with the adaptive tendencies of a place rather than imposing external frameworks on it.

The second premise, regenerative capacity, builds upon this understanding of place by emphasizing the importance of cultivating capacities that are locally embedded and evolve in concert with their environment. Regenerative projects aim to support the ongoing co-evolution of the built, cultural, and natural environments, and the human communities that inhabit and care for them, toward higher levels of complexity, diversity, and generativity. These outcomes are not limited to individual components, but extend to the performance of the broader socio-ecological system in which a project is situated.

The third premise, partnering with place, further deepens this system-based orientation by calling for a redefinition of the designer’s or planner’s role. Rather than acting as a builder of systems we control, the regenerative practitioner assumes the role of a gardener—one who works in reciprocal partnership with place and its unfolding processes [39,41]. Regenerative projects, therefore, are not simply interventions but vehicles for catalyzing cooperative enterprises and fostering the conditions necessary for ongoing evolution and mutual flourishing within and beyond the local system.

Finally, the fourth premise, progressive harmonization, extends the RD’s systemic perspective across spatial and temporal scales. Regenerative projects seek to initiate a process of increasingly aligning patterns between humans and natural systems [42]. In this context, pattern is regarded as the language of relationships, and RD is understood as a process of re-patterning human communities in accordance with the energetic, ecological, and cultural dynamics of a place. As ecosystems are inherently self-organizing and continually reorganizing—toward greater complexity, clarity, and information content—RD endeavors to participate in and enhance these evolutionary processes [43]. By progressively harmonizing human activity with the regenerative flows of nature, RD facilitates co-evolution in which both human and ecological systems can thrive.

This harmonization process unfolds through three key phases [38]. The first phase, understanding the relationship to place, involves an integral assessment: a comprehensive analysis of the cultural, economic, geographic, climatic, and ecological dimensions of place as a living system. This assessment provides the foundational insights needed to envision how human actions can enhance the ongoing vitality and evolution of a place, with humans positioned as active participants within it. The second phase, designing harmony with a place, translates this understanding into integrated design principles, plans, and processes that optimize human presence within the landscape. This involves aligning human activities with larger patterns of place using systemic and responsive design strategies. The third phase, designing for co-evolution, redefines the designer’s role as a facilitator and resource provider, supporting continuous adaptation. Designers provide tools and methods that enable owners, managers, contractors, and community stakeholders to remain attuned to the evolving character of a place, thereby recognizing and responding to new ecological, social, and economic opportunities as they emerge.

2.4. Synthesis of Adaptive Planning Approach and Transformative Capacities Under Regenerative Design

Based on these theoretical frameworks, this study synthesizes the adaptive planning approach based on the CAS theory and TC under RD (Figure 1). Among RD and the adaptive planning approach, RD extends adaptive planning approach to non-human actors, while adaptive planning approach concretizes approaches that realize the premises of RD’s “place and potential” and “partnering with place.” Both are influenced by complex science, particularly in their use of self-organization and co-evolution. The principles of “non-linear development trajectories” and “responsive to dynamic environment” in the adaptive planning approach can be seen as conditions that enable actors both within and outside the development site to achieve harmony with place as a complex and dynamic network. Although the adaptive planning approach does not consider natural ecosystems as actors, this study proposes the principles of the adaptive planning approach to be applied to more-than-human actors.

Among RD and TC, the use of the term “capacity” is common. The concept of regenerative capacities is abstract and biased toward the perspective of natural ecosystems but emphasizes interactions and networks. On the other hand, previous studies on TC have analyzed organizations that enhance TC in specific areas separately, without a network perspective; however, the three types of TC are more comprehensive than regenerative capacities. In this study, regenerative capacity is defined as a network of TC. This approach to constructing a TC as a network can be understood as the principles of adaptive planning approaches such as self-organization and co-evolution. By introducing a multiscale perspective, self-organization can be organized as the improvement of TC within a site and co-evolution as the improvement of TC across sites.

3. Case Context and Research Methods

3.1. Setagaya, Shimokitazawa, and Shimokita-Senrogai

Setagaya Ward, located in southwestern Tokyo, faces significant socio-ecological challenges that reflect broader global urban sustainability issues. Climate change is already evident in the area and is marked by increasingly frequent extreme weather events including heavy rainfall, flooding, intense typhoons, and prolonged heat waves [44]. Projections indicate that these conditions will become more frequent, consequently posing substantial risks to the local infrastructure, public health, and community resilience. In addition to these environmental pressures, Setagaya is experiencing shifting socio-economic dynamics, including widening wealth disparities, rising poverty, employment instability, and financial constraints, which impact municipal governance and public services [45]. These intersecting environmental and socio-economic challenges highlight the urgent need for transformative interventions in key urban systems and social processes to ensure long-term resilience and equity. Setagaya’s situation reflects the challenges faced by many mid-sized urban areas, not only in the Global North, but also across various Asian contexts, thereby making its local experiences broadly relevant.

Setagaya Ward is a pioneer of Japan in RD initiatives in terms of co-evolution of the socio-ecological systems to better health states and participatory design process in addition to continuous and adaptive design process as principles of RD [3]. Citizen-led initiatives called machizukuri have been going on since the 1980s. Setagaya Ward has provided continuous support for citizen-led initiatives, including the Setagaya Community Development Fund, which provides financial support for various citizen activities, and Community House Building Support Project, which supports the use of vacant private spaces. In addition, Setagaya Ward has a wealth of natural environments such as green spaces and waterfront areas, as well as historical and cultural heritage such as modern architecture, and there have been trust movements to preserve these. In recent years, there has also been progress in citizen-led green infrastructure initiatives.

Within Setagaya, the district of Shimokitazawa and its urban development project present a particularly compelling context for examining the potential of machizukuri in fostering TC. Renowned for its vibrant cultural scene, Shimokitazawa is home to diverse artistic, musical, and creative communities, thus earning international recognition as a center of urban creativity and innovation-based active citizenship. Shimokitazawa has consistently ranked among the world’s top neighborhoods, most notably in the Time Out Index’s annual ranking of “The 51 Coolest Neighborhoods in the World,” where it ranked second in 2019 and seventh in 2022 [46].

An urban development project in Shimokitazawa was driven by major urban infrastructure changes such as the undergrounding of railway tracks along Odakyu Line between Higashi-Kitazawa and Setagaya-Daita stations from 2004 to 2022. Odakyu Electric Railway, a railway and real estate developer, has been working on a project to double the number of tracks on its lines since 1964 as part of a continuous grade separation project in Tokyo. In 2003 it was decided to build the section from Higashi-Kitazawa to Setagaya-Daita underground, and land readjustment and construction of new roads were announced. In response, there was criticism that the large-scale development would destroy the unique charm of Shimokitazawa, and a citizens’ movement was activated. To deal with this situation, the 1.7 km former railway site was reimagined as the Shimokita-Senrogai project under the novel “servant development” concept by the collaborative body including Odakyu Electric Railway. This approach leveraged Shimokitazawa’s existing diversity and cultural richness and established social networks as foundational resources for regeneration, thereby aiming to deepen existing assets while fostering new connections within the community. The project exemplifies an innovative and adaptive approach in which private sector leadership, specifically that of Odakyu Electric Railway, is deliberately reoriented toward community support and empowerment rather than conventional top-down urban development, which prioritizes large-scale interventions.

This strategic shift provides a unique context to examine how private sector involvement, when combined with intentional community-oriented practices, can foster adaptive planning, facilitate community self-organization, and enhance transformative capacities beyond the site boundary. Specifically, the Odakyu Electric Railway’s principles of this project are as follows: (1) residents should be the main actors in urban development and Odakyu Electric Railway should only support them; (2) functionally segregated traditional organizations should be replaced with newly integrated and dynamic organizations; (3) face-to-face contact with residents should be created; (4) flexible rules should be created that allow tenants to manage their own operations; and (5) the entire local community should work together to cultivate flexible human resources that can play an active role in society in the future [13]. Therefore, the servant development project in Shimokita-Senrogai aligns with the principles of adaptive planning by supporting and enhancing existing community assets and networks, thereby fostering incremental context-sensitive urban transformation. Thus, Shimokita-Senrogai serves as a critical testbed for examining how the intentional integration of RD and adaptive planning approach under the concept of servant development can promote regenerative urban outcomes. Its distinctive characteristics, including a vibrant creative scene, engaged community organizations, and a history of active citizen participation, make it a particularly valuable case for studying how urban development can foster TC essential for regenerative urban futures.

3.2. Case Selection and Data Collection

As mentioned above, Shimokita-Senrogai (Figure 2) was selected as the central case for this study because of its strong alignment with adaptive planning principles and its potential to advance the discourse and practice of multiscale RD toward transformative capacities. Shimokita-Senrogai is composed of three areas, Setagaya-Daita, Shimokitazawa, and Higashi-Kitazawa. Setagaya-Daita has Bonus Track, which is a new shopping street with restaurants and retail stores, including those with living quarters. Bonus Track is characterized by unique architectural design and management rules to promote proactive citizens’ initiatives and their collaboration. The Shimokitazawa area includes Akichi, a vacant space for various citizens’ activities through experimental and temporary uses, rather than serving as an event space for Odakyu Electric Railway, which owns it. The Higashi-Kitazawa area has Reload, which is a new shopping street with individual stores. The aggregation of individual stores is one of the characteristics of Shimokitazawa.

In addition to the organizations directly involved in Shimokita-Senrogai, there are some organizations related to RD in Shimokitazawa. Two methods were used to select organizations for this study. First, non-profit organizations (NPOs) based in the Shimokitazawa area, where Shimokita-Senrogai is located, were extracted from the Cabinet Office’s nationwide database. Next, I checked the websites of these NPOs and extracted those developing activities related to one of the three TC. As for the other method, to extract community organizations that are not NPOs, this study listed organizations related to Shimokita-Senrogai from books and interviews with the person responsible for the area management division of Odakyu Electric Railway. I then checked the websites of these organizations and extracted those that were developing activities related to one of the three TC. The criteria used to determine relevance were whether the organization was implementing activities under the TC sub-categories. Based on these criteria, thirteen organizations were identified.

Data collection in this study employed an integrated qualitative approach to capture both tangible and intangible aspects of the project’s regenerative impact. Extensive document analysis served as a foundational method, incorporating detailed reviews of planning reports, Odakyu Electric Railway’s documents, municipal records, the expert literature on Shimokitazawa and Shimokita-Senrogai, and each organization’ website. These documents provide critical insights into the project’s objectives, design rationale, and intended outcomes beyond the boundary of the urban development project site. In addition to the literature from multi-sector stakeholders such as government, businesses, and citizens [13,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55], this study also collected literature from non-stakeholders, such as research papers and articles from urban architecture journals, to ensure data triangulation and comprehensive stakeholder perspectives.

Based on this table, special attention was given to organizations and initiatives embedded within or significantly interacting with the Shimokita-Senrogai project. These included Shimokita-Engeibu, a proactive community gardening collective that strengthens urban ecological reconnection; Shimokita-College, a co-living educational facility that fosters youth leadership and community engagement; and Kitazawa Osekkai Club, which promotes social innovation and community cohesion through localized interventions. Further emphasis was placed on Omusubi Real Estate’s efforts to revitalize vacant houses, thereby enhancing local sustainability and housing diversity.

In addition to document analysis, an in-depth semi-structured interview was conducted with a person responsible for Odakyu Electric Railway’s area management division, who provided insights into the assessment on how the project could contribute to improving transformative capacities. The interview procedure was as follows. First, I showed the interviewee a list of NPOs based on the aforementioned nationwide database compiled by the Cabinet Office and a list of community organizations related to Shimokita-Senrogai based on books about Shimokita-Senrogai. I then asked them to provide the names of community organizations related to Shimokita-Senrogai that were not included in these lists and to describe their activities in Shimokita-Senrogai. Next, I asked them about initiatives related to Shimokita-Senrogai that improve one of the three capacities for change. Then, I confirmed the relationship between each organization on the list that is engaged in initiatives to improve one of the three capacities for change and urban development. Additionally, complementary material encompassed lectures and discussions of the person responsible for Odakyu Electric Railway’s area management division and designers of architecture and landscape, who provided insights into the intentions related to adaptive planning approach. These discussions aimed to uncover the intentions, interactions, and collaborative dynamics that shaped the project’s regenerative potential in terms of both adaptive planning approach and transformative capacities.

Field observations were conducted over four site visits between May 2023 and May 2025. The three site visits in which the person responsible for Odakyu Electric Railway’s area management division or an architect involved in Shimokita-Senrogai went together covered all associated initiatives within the Shimokita-Senrogai area. By going around the site with the planner or designer, I could compare the actual situation with the intention of urban development project. One time with them, events were held at Reload, Akichi, and Bonus Track, with open spaces on a weekend day. At another one time, only I went around within and outside the Shimokita-Senrogai area to capture the initiatives not directly associated Shimokita-Senrogai but contributing to improving transformative capacities. These observations encompassed participation in community events, markets, gardening activities, and other public engagements initiated or facilitated by the project, thereby providing deeper insight into the active use and adaptation of physical spaces by community members. Through these direct field observations, this study could confirm the actual situations of the description in the documents, interview, lectures, and discussions.

3.3. Data Analysis

This research adopted a systematic, theory-driven qualitative methodology, structured around two possible interconnected theoretical frameworks: adaptive planning approach and transformative capacities. This study used both deductive and inductive approaches within NVIVO. Although the coding process was carried out by only the author, this mixed approach guaranteed inter-coder reliability to allow replication. The deductive approach used the keywords of sub-category in adaptive planning approach and TC.

The qualitative data collected were first coded according to the four adaptive planning properties based on the CAS theory: non-linear trajectories, responsiveness to dynamic contexts, self-organization, and co-evolution. Specifically, based on the script of the documents and interview related to the urban development, this initial coding identified and classified the initiatives associated with enabling conditions in each adaptive planning property in the Shimokita-Senrogai project as servant development.

Subsequently, a second coding process assessed how Shimokitazawa organizations and their initiatives increased TC, as outlined by Hestad et al. [7] on a scale-by-scale basis, and how these identified adaptive planning approach dynamics contributed, either directly or indirectly, to transformative capacities. Specifically, this second coding identified and classified the initiatives associated with sub-categories of transformative capacities. This involved a detailed analysis of how the observed project activities and community practices supported socio-ecological reconnection, enhanced individual and political agency, and strengthened community relationships and social cohesion. The dual application of these analytical lenses bridged theoretical insights and empirical observations, and provided a robust understanding of how Shimokita-Senrogai functions as a multiscale regenerative system rather than merely a collection of sustainable infrastructure elements.

4. Adaptive Planning Approach as Regenerative Design

4.1. Non-Linear Development Trajectories

Table 1. Summary of the empirical results based on the analytical framework.

No.	Name	Initiative	Location Related to the Development Site	Association with Shimokita-Senrogai	Adaptive Planning Approach Principles (Enabling Conditions)	Scale	Regenerative Capacities as Network of Transformative Capacities
1	Bonus Track	Circular architecture because of its disassemble structure and participatory construction and maintenance process	Within the development site	One of the Shimokita-Senrogai projects	Non-linear development trajectories, Co-evolution	Neighborhood	Socio-ecological reconnection
		Contributed to building rich community relationships with existing local communities outside development sites such as shopping street associations, residents including child-rearing generation and cultural enterprises of music, and play for which Shimokitazawa is famous because these places include shops which local res-idents can use daily and are spaces for citizens to plan how to use and realize their activities by themselves.				Neighborhood	Building rich community relationships and social cohesion
2	Meguru Club	A community service in which users bring waste from their daily lives into resource collection boxes.	Within Bonus Track	Project by the tenant in Bonus Track		Neighborhood	Socio-ecological reconnection
3	Akichi	Fostered healthy individuals and political agency through creating a place where people could say what they wanted to do and an environment where they could make it happen.	Within the development site	One of the Shimokita-Senrogai projects	Responsive to dynamic environment	Neighborhood	Fostering healthy individual and political agency
		Contributed to building rich community relationships with ex-isting local communities outside development sites such as shopping street associations, residents including child-rearing generation and cultural enterprises of music, and play for which Shimokitazawa is famous because these places include shops which local res-idents can use daily and are spaces for citizens to plan how to use and realize their ac-tivities by themselves.				Neighborhood	Building rich community relationships and social cohesion
4	Reload	A new shopping street with individual stores	Within the development site	One of the Shimokita-Senrogai projects	Co-evolution
5	Komham	A biomass processing system that reduces the volume of organic waste at high speed.	Within Reload	One of the Shimokita-Senrogai projects		Neighborhood	Socio-ecological reconnection
6	Nawashiro Stand	Promoted both environmental and economic sustainability by creating new local business opportunities while reducing urban environmental degradation	Outside the development site	Project by the tenant in Bonus Track		Neighborhood	Socio-ecological reconnection
7	Cobaco Food Bank	Redistributed food surplus from local businesses and community donations to residents in need. By redistributing surplus food to residents in need, this organization fostered a strong network of local solidarity, care, and mutual support.	Outside the development site	Not directly associated with Shimokita-Senrogai but the management organization collaborate with Shimokita-Senrogai		Neighborhood	Socio-ecological reconnection Building rich community relationships and social cohesion
8	Shimokita-Engeibu	Prominent local community gardening group, exemplified how urban greening initi-atives can effectively cultivate socio-ecological reconnection.	Within the development site	Initiative derived from the development process	Self-organization	Neighborhood	Socio-ecological reconnection
		By engaging residents and outside citizens with attachment to or interest in Shimokitazawa in gardening, composting, and urban agriculture, Shimokita-Engeibu provides a collaborative space for collective work, knowledge exchange, and social connection.				City	Building rich community relationships and social cohesion
9	Shimokita Ring	A forum for dialogue between supporters and opponents of development and focused on examining the temporary use of public space, including the area in front of Shimokitazawa Station and the upper part of the Odakyu line.	Outside the development site	Initiative dreived from the development process		Neighborhood	Fostering healthy individual and political agency
10	Shimokita-College	Promoted intergenerational interactions, shared living experiences, and generated new local players such as entrepreneurs in new local businesses.	Within the development site	One of the Shimokita-Senrogai projects	Co-evolution	Neighborhood	Building rich community relationships and social cohesion
11	Kitta	People can earn Kitta, a local digital currency, by participating in activities that showcase Shimokitazawa’s cultural appeal, such as live performances at Akichi, performances at city pianos in commercial buildings, and activities that contribute to solving social problems, such as reducing plastic waste and food drives.	Within and outside the development site		Co-evolution	City	Building rich community relationships and social cohesion
12	Setagaya Energy for All	Directly involved residents in the production and consumption of renewable energy to foster a more sustainable energy flow within the community.	Outside the development site	Not associated with Shimokita-Senrogai		Neighborhood	Socio-ecological reconnection
13	Odakyu Group Carbon Neutral 2050	Aims to achieve net zero CO2 emissions for the Odakyu Group by 2050	No specific location	Not associated with Shimokita-Senrogai		City-region	Socio-ecological reconnection
14	Tokyo Satoyama Kaitaku-Dan	Aims to contribute to social welfare and environmental conservation by cultivating abandoned forests and utilizing the bounties of nature, together with children living in foster homes and other people in need of support.	Outside the development site	Not associated with Shimokita-Senrogai		City-region	Socio-ecological reconnection

summarizes the empirical results of this study. One of the most illustrative cases of non-linear development in Shimokita-Senrogai is Bonus Track (Figure 3), which embraces uncertainty as an integral component of urban development. Rather than attempting to eliminate unpredictability, the project seeks to embed it structurally and institutionally by allowing tenants to actively participate in the spatial transformation and maintenance of the built environment. This design philosophy aligns with the CAS principle of non-linearity, where outcomes are not predetermined but evolve through iterative and context-specific interactions. The architects of Bonus Track, Tsubame Architects, intentionally designed the structures to be modifiable and easily understood by tenants. Key design features such as exposed wooden frames, visible wiring, and detachable joints were implemented not as esthetic choices but as mechanisms to facilitate user intervention. These interventions are not simply individual alterations but are indicative of an adaptive design logic that anticipates and accommodates change.

The project’s regulatory framework also diverges from conventional development norms. Instead of restrictive lists of prohibited modifications, the interior supervision guidelines function as enabling documents—designed to support tenant creativity and context-sensitive alteration based on observed urban patterns. This regulatory innovation shifts governance from control to guidance, fostering distributed agency, a hallmark of CAS-informed planning. Moreover, by permitting lease-line extensions and encouraging the active use of common spaces such as the central plaza, Bonus Track reinforces place-based flexibility and social experimentation. This was particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic when tenants adapted spatial configurations for open-air markets and community events.

In addition to these measures, the floor area of each store was made smaller to make it affordable for young people to open a store, thereby enabling tenants to take on new and challenging initiatives. This situation, where the town’s ability to communicate is formed by something new being born constantly, and being open to people who take on challenges, was also something that the designers and operators thought was characteristic of Shimokitazawa. As described above, by combining the design of buildings that could be modified and the creation of rules that encourage their use, Bonus Track created a situation in which new initiatives were created that allowed the tenants themselves to take the initiative in creating the cityscape and adapting to uncertainty.

4.2. Responsive to Dynamic Environment

Shimokita-Senrogai’s responsiveness to dynamic environmental conditions was evident in its adaptation to the unexpected disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than stagnating, the community leveraged the project’s inherent flexibility, as exemplified by Akichi, to sustain and even expand social activities. This adaptability underscored the project’s successful alignment with CAS principles, thereby emphasizing open-ended flexibility and proactive management of uncertainties and opportunities within urban contexts.

Akichi (Figure 4) was a space that was launched in September 2019 and used on a tentative basis for a limited period of approximately one and a half years. It consisted of rental spaces, rental kitchens, and green spaces. As a space that embodied supportive development, Akichi was a place where local people could do what they wanted by providing space for local activities free of charge or at low cost and renting it out for corporate events and other purposes. As a result, it was used by a local childcare club and live houses. Akichi was initially only supposed to be open until March 2021, but since over 200 signatures were collected from the local community requesting that it continue to be used, it was decided that it would continue to be used temporarily for the time being. As of April 2025, it is still used on a temporary basis. Despite the closure of many public spaces because of COVID-19, Akichi continued to be used. Thus, the Shimokita-Senrogai area had a place that could continue to be used on a temporary basis, thereby enabling it to respond to dynamic situations.

Furthermore, Kitazawa Osekkai Club successfully combined planned and unexpected opportunities. From 2014, the movement to establish Odekake Hiroba, child-rearing support centers, spread throughout Setagaya Ward, with the aim of one center per junior high school district. Odekake Hiroba is a place where child-rearing consultations can be held, mainly for children aged 0–3 years and their carers. The management body is selected through a public call and subsidized by the ward. Kitazawa Osekkai Club was selected as a management body for the Shimokitazawa area. In addition, Kitazawa Osekkai Club contributed to creating places for families with children to gather, not just for Odekake Hiroba, by holding events where parents and children could gather in Akichi in collaboration with Odakyu Electric Railway, and by setting up a food bank in collaboration with shopping street associations.

4.3. Self-Organization

Self-organization, a core principle of the CAS theory, emerged as a defining feature of Shimokita-Senrogai. Shimokita-Engeibu (Figure 5), which undertakes the maintenance of Shimokita-Senrogai’s plantings, promoted a trend in which citizens, who could be seen as self-organizing, would become co-creators of the city. Through this system, people from both within and outside Shimokitazawa who cherished the area would carefully nurture the local plants while enjoying and using them, rather than the usual method of manual maintenance by a management company. This organization was originally a citizen group of local residents who loved plants. In August 2021, it became a general incorporated association, and now has a base in Shimokita-Senrogai, where it carries out various activities, including planting and maintenance, which was officially commissioned by Odakyu Electric Railway. Shimokita-Engeibu is an open association that anyone can join. Anyone who loves Shimokitazawa and wants to be involved in gardening can join. Their base, Shimokita Nohara Hiroba, is based on the concept of a wild garden. With the assumption that Shimokita-Engeibu would continue to maintain it, a wide variety of plants were planted, from large deciduous trees to what would be called weeds, and the way they were cared for was adjusted according to the growth conditions of the plants. Through such activities that encourage self-organization by people from inside and outside the area, Shimokita-Engeibu is trying to show that it is possible to enjoy activities that involve learning about and being in touch with greenery, even in the city.

4.4. Co-Evolution

Finally, co-evolution, another key component of the CAS theory, was evident in Shimokita-Senrogai’s approach to continuous adaptation and mutual reinforcement among physical infrastructure, institutional arrangements, and community practices. Examples of co-evolutionary processes included sub-leasing schemes on Bonus Track. From the perspective of credit risk, it was difficult for Odakyu Electric Railway to enter into a lease agreement with individual tenants. Meanwhile, the Odakyu Electric Railway staff in charge thought that one of the charms of Shimokitazawa was the large number of individual shops where retailers knew each other. By adopting a sub-leasing system, it became possible to enter into agreements with individual tenants. The company coordinating this is Sanposha, which was newly launched by the editor of a web magazine called “Greens” that deals with the theme of social design. The company gathered individual tenants who had their own unique content, and implemented advertising and events with the tenants, thereby aiming for Bonus Track itself to function as a media outlet. Through this, tenants were able to create a synergistic effect, and the value of the area was improved, including an increase in sales. This sub-leasing system was also introduced in other facilities in Shimokita-Senrogai. Differentiation was performed at each facility according to the characteristics of the area. In this way, a spatial and institutional framework was put into practice that enabled modular development and operation that increased opportunities for mutual adaptation between systems.

In addition, Kitta is an initiative that connects the town, shops, and people inside and outside the development area through a local community currency that can be earned by participating in town events and activities. By using this local community currency, people can receive daily necessities in exchange for coins at childcare centers or have special experiences at shops. Furthermore, Shimokita-College is a residential educational facility where high school and university students as well as working people can learn from each other. The aim was to create a program that would enable residents to grow independently through two years of communal living with people of different generations, and to achieve co-evolution between residents and the local community. Rather than creating a program where the facility management organization would go out into the local community, the aim was to create a system that would enable residents to become familiar and interact with local people naturally, according to their individual incentives.

5. Contributions to Increasing Regenerative Capacities

5.1. Socio-Ecological Reconnection

First, regarding site scale, Bonus Track can be regarded as a circular architecture because of its disassemble structure and participatory construction and maintenance process. Although the architect’s discourse does not refer to such circularity, Bonus Track follows a multilayered composition [56]. Although materials were not necessarily locally sourced, Bonus Track may foster experiential and emotional bonds between community members and their environment, thereby reinforcing collective responsibility and environmental stewardship through the participatory approach.

Another contribution to socio-ecological reconnection in Shimokitazawa was the citizen-driven renewable energy project led by Setagaya Energy for All. This initiative directly involved residents in the production and consumption of renewable energy to foster a more sustainable energy flow within the community like Caritas Shimokitazawa Solar Citizen Cooperative Power Plant. This approach emphasized resident empowerment and encouraged local citizens to take active ownership of energy generation projects. This participation not only promoted material sustainability through renewable energy use but also strengthened cognitive reconnection, as residents developed a deeper awareness and understanding of energy sustainability issues. However, this initiative does not collaborate with Shimokita-Senrogai.

Second, regarding neighborhood scale, Shimokita-Engeibu, a prominent local community gardening group, exemplified how urban greening initiatives can effectively cultivate socio-ecological reconnection. The activities of Shimokita-Engeibu not only involve maintaining plants, but also expanding their activities from this starting point to create various cycles in the neighborhood. For example, the members mix pruned branches and leaves with coffee grounds and buckwheat chaff that would otherwise be thrown away by local shops and fermented them to make compost. They used this compost to grow plants and returned them to the neighborhood. They also sell unwanted potted plants and other plants that had nowhere else to go to as second-hand items. Shimokita-Engeibu named itself “Furugiya,” which is the same as the pronunciation of second-hand clothes shops in Japanese, for which Shimokitazawa is famous. In addition, they also operated a tea stand using the herbs they grown, and sold wreaths and bouquets made from pruned branches and leaves. Through these initiatives, Shimokita-Engeibu promoted ecological awareness, thereby fostering a deeper appreciation and understanding of urban ecosystems among community members. Residents who participated in these activities became directly involved in ecological cycles, strengthening their cognitive and experiential connections to local natural processes and encouraging regenerative practices in daily life. In this way, Shimokita-Engeibu created a new connection between plants, people, and the community by treating the plants in the area as a common-pool resource and promoting their diverse usage in people’s daily lives.

Additionally, socio-ecological reconnection in Shimokitazawa was further supported through innovative circular economy activities led by organizations such as Omusubi Real Estate and Kitazawa Osekkai Club. Omusubi Real Estate addressed the challenges posed by vacant houses in Setagaya by revitalizing these unused properties into spaces for community and entrepreneurial use. Nawashiro Stand promoted both environmental and economic sustainability by creating new local business opportunities while reducing urban environmental degradation. Similarly, Kitazawa Osekkai Club operated Cobaco Food Bank, which redistributed food surpluses from local businesses and community donations to residents in need. This initiative not only addressed local socio-economic disparities but also reduced food waste, thus fostering shorter and more sustainable local food systems. Additionally, Greening, which is the master lease holder for Reload, took steps such as switching the power supply for Reload to renewable energy and installing a trial version of Komham, a biomass processing system that reduces the volume of organic waste at high speed. Moreover, the first initiative of Meguru Club was introduced in Bonus Track. This initiative is a community service in which users bring waste from their daily lives into resource collection boxes. Depending on how often they do this, digital art grows, and users receive digital art NFTs. Through the growth of digital art, user contributions to resource recycling are visible.

Third, regarding city-region scale, in September 2021, Odakyu Electric Railway formulated the “Odakyu Group Carbon Neutral 2050” action guideline, which aims to achieve net zero CO₂ emissions for the Odakyu Group by 2050. Under this guideline, Odakyu Electric Railway is working with group companies to promote carbon offsetting for trains using the J-credit system. As a service for customers, a new product called the “Ethical Travel Plan” has been developed, which allows customers to contribute to the preservation of the natural scenery of Hakone Town, as well as to use public transport and stay at hotels while offsetting their carbon emissions. However, at present, there is no direct connection between this regional-scale guideline and the Shimokita-Senrogai area.

Moreover, Tokyo Satoyama Kaitaku-Dan, whose office is located in Shimokitazawa, aims to contribute to social welfare and environmental conservation by cultivating abandoned forests and utilizing the bounties of nature, together with children living in foster homes and other people in need of support in Hachioji City. In recent years, the organization has started using a vacant house in Setagaya Ward as a children’s home. These activities seem to have a high synergy with the activities of organizations such as Shimokita-Engeibu and Kitazawa Osekkai Club, but they have not yet cooperated.

Collectively, various initiatives in Shimokita-Senrogai and citizens’ activities in Shimokitazawa amplified socio-ecological reconnections at multiple scales (Figure 6). In particular, Shimokita-Senrogai, which was created when the railroad tracks were moved underground, forms a green corridor close to Kitazawa River and Hanegi Park, contributing to an increase in the green space ratio. As of 2016, the green space ratio for the entire Setagaya Ward was 25.18%, while the green space ratio for the Shimokitazawa area was less than 10%. A greener community is being fostered, starting with Shimokita-Engeibu. However, the initiatives in Shimokita-Senrogai were not well coordinated with other initiatives in Shimokitazawa on either scale. From a regional perspective, this could serve as part of a corridor connecting the green spaces of central Tokyo, such as Meiji Jingu Gaien and Yoyogi Park, with the green areas around Tama River. However, it does not aim to regenerate such broad-scale socio-ecological reconnection along the Odakyu Line.

5.2. Fostering Healthy Individual and Political Agency

One notable example is Shimokita Ring, formerly known as the Kitazawa Promotion Strategy Council, which was established by the Setagaya local government in 2016 to allow citizens to discuss and implement their activities with the support of the local government. This platform served as a vital avenue for community involvement in urban governance. The establishment of this council was due to various past citizen activities such as Save the Shimokitazawa, Shimokitazawa Forum, and Green Line Shimokitazawa, as well as the change of the ward mayor to the liberalist, Nobuto Hosaka, who fully promoted information disclosure and citizen participation. This council became a forum for dialog between supporters and opponents of development and focused on examining the temporary use of public space, including the area in front of Shimokitazawa Station and the upper part of the Odakyu line. As a result, Shimokitazawa Link Park, which promotes the temporary use of the planned road construction site in collaboration with the shopping street organizations, was launched in 2019. In addition, Shimokita-Engeibu was originally based on the Shimokita green group, which was one of the subcommittees of this council. The participatory mechanism of this council in which citizens had the right to propose agenda items proved instrumental in fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility among community members, thereby reinforcing their roles as active agents in local urban development and governance.

Moreover, Akichi fostered healthy individuals and political agency through creating a place where people could say what they wanted to do and an environment where they could make it happen. The catalyst was the “100 Things We Want to Do in Akichi” questionnaire that was taken at a meeting for residents when the official plan for the Shimokita-Senrogai was announced in September 2019. Citizens were asked to write about what they wanted to do with the vacant land on post-it notes that were subsequently posted on a board. Among the ideas, there were several for performing radio calisthenics; when the Odakyu Electric Railway employees and other members of the Akichi team tried performing radio calisthenics, other citizens supported them. From then on, the citizens took on the entire operation of the space, from opening and closing the gate to leading the calisthenics and announcing events. In addition to radio calisthenics, Akichi hosts events such as a monthly weekend food market, live music events, and events where children can try different activities and visit shops, and it is becoming a place where there is always something going on at the weekend. Activities such as this are springing up all over Shimokitazawa; by 2021, when the area was fully operational, there were around 20 of them. In this way, the idea of “servant development”—creating a building called Shimokita-Senrogai and then supporting the residents and people who work in the area to do what they want to do, consequently making the area more interesting—has become a reality.

In summary, various initiatives in Shimokita-Senrogai and associated citizens’ activities provoked by the development project were demonstrated to amplify individual and political agency due to its planning process and existing local citizens’ agency. However, these initiatives did not increase individual and political agencies beyond the neighborhood scale, in that the road project itself, decided in the 1946 city planning process, was not revised.

5.3. Building Rich Community Relationships and Social Cohesion

At the neighborhood scale, Akichi and Bonus Track contributed to building rich community relationships with existing local communities outside development sites such as shopping street associations, residents, including the child-rearing generation, cultural enterprises of music and play, for which Shimokitazawa is famous due to these places including shops which local residents can use daily and are spaces for citizens to plan how to use and realize their activities by themselves. Meanwhile, Reload was criticized because of its lack of tenants for daily use. Shimokita-College also built social cohesion at the neighborhood scale. Shimokita-College promoted intergenerational interactions, shared living experiences, and generated new local players such as entrepreneurs in new local businesses. Kitazawa Osekkai Club also contributed to social cohesion through targeted social innovation initiatives, including Cobaco Food Bank and Kitago and Daichi Shokudo, which was a community cafeteria. By redistributing surplus food to residents in need, this organization fostered a strong network of local solidarity, care, and mutual support. Through these tangible expressions of community care, local communities, including local cultural enterprises, strengthened interpersonal connections and social ties, establishing a foundation for sustained social cohesion.

Regarding the city scale, Kitta and Shimokita-Engeibu built social cohesion. People can earn Kitta, a local digital currency, by participating in activities that showcase Shimokitazawa’s cultural appeal, such as live performances at Akichi, performances at city pianos in commercial buildings, and activities that contribute to solving social problems, such as reducing plastic waste and food drives [57]. Shimokita-Engeibu further illustrated how social cohesion was fostered through ecological activities. By engaging residents and outside citizens with attachment to or interest in Shimokitazawa in gardening, composting, and urban agriculture, Shimokita-Engeibu provides a collaborative space for collective work, knowledge exchange, and social connection. These shared ecological experiences not only promote environmental awareness but also strengthen community bonds, thereby enhancing social resilience and communal well-being. Shimokita-Engeibu comprised members from various generations with a variety of interests and expertise, including local citizens such as mothers, fathers, children, amateurs, professional gardeners, architects, graphic designers, and university students. This initiative aimed to create a contemporary collective form of co-governance that was not based on the fixed, clearly defined boundaries of a community. Instead, it is a loose collective form of co-governance drawn by the soft will of various people who come and go through the city. These initiatives could build bridges between different people.

Collectively, these Shimokitazawa initiatives illustrate a comprehensive approach to strengthen community relationships and promote social cohesion. By systematically creating spaces and opportunities for sustained engagement, collaboration, and mutual support, these initiatives reinforce community resilience and solidarity, which are key components for achieving long-term regenerative urban transformation. However, there is room for greater collaboration between the urban development and other initiatives.

6. Discussion

The initiatives undertaken in Shimokitazawa through the Shimokita-Senrogai project succeeded in enhancing their transformative capacities by adapting to and harmonizing with the local places, networks of actors, and activities, and showcased the potential of community-driven approaches to impact urban transformation. Such an adaptive approach was made possible by the existence of a strong local culture of participation and a private company and its representatives who actively created opportunities for participation. Setagaya Ward’s historical implementation of participatory initiatives and the mayor’s proactive approach to citizen participation during the development process are also contextual factors.

The extent to which TC improves through an adaptive approach corresponds to the degree of self-organization achieved by such an approach. In terms of socio-ecological reconnection, projects such as Nawashiro Stand transcended the site scale, and activities such as Shimokita-Engeibu, which involved participants from outside Setagaya Ward, expanded to the city scale. In terms of fostering healthy individual and political agency, it became possible to change the procedures for urban development in Setagaya Ward, as well as continuously holding meetings where citizens can raise issues, such as Shimokita Ring. In terms of building rich community relationships and social cohesion, TC at the neighborhood scale was cultivated, including aspects of social inclusion such as food banks, since citizen activities were already well established.

Despite these achievements, the Shimokita-Senrogai project faces critical challenges on TC. Reflecting on the limits of improving TC can provide insight into urban practices and the systems that support them. Regarding socio-ecological reconnection, one notable limitation is the relatively weak collaboration between Odakyu Electric Railway and environmental organizations, although Shimokita-Senrogai could function as green infrastructure in the urban area. Moreover, there was little collaboration beyond neighborhood scale in the three TC, despite the railway company’s capacity to engage in broader regional planning. Surprisingly, Shimokita-Senrogai did not realize the Odakyu Electric Railway’s whole strategy with respect to carbon neutrality. The failure to establish a wide-area network is due to the lack of visibility and incorporation of such connections and actors into the development process. Regarding the fostering of healthy individual and political agency, the necessary political agency to change Tokyo’s urban planning decisions has not yet been gained. However, it may be possible to change the plan if decentralization is promoted, thereby delegating decision-making authority to local governments, such as Setagaya Ward. Another possibility is the realization of activities and organizations that self-organize on the scale of Tokyo. These align with Hestad’s argument that one of the key reasons for the limited ability of organizations to build the three capacities beyond the neighborhood scale relates to the lack of institutional and legal arrangements that allow for the spread and support of such organizations, as well as for monitoring and evaluating their outcomes and impacts [6].

Based on these, this study proposes recommendations for urban practice on how to translate the regenerative approach into public policies, regulatory instruments, and territorial management tools. First, public policies should incorporate non-statutory community visions contributing to co-evolution through self-organization by functioning as a compass which illustrates who are stakeholders to collaborate with through adaptive planning processes. Such public policies provide preconditions for regulation and incentive related to cross-sectoral planning accompanied with community projects. In this case, the development reflected the vision of the citizens and community through a citizens’ movement. However, if this vision had been incorporated into public policy beforehand, the process would have been more feasible. Second, regulatory instruments should include procedural rules to improve TC through an adaptive planning approach and provide property use rights in urban development projects which guarantee the continuity of community-driven projects contributing to maintaining urban green space and food circulation. Shimokita-Engeibu moved into a tenant space in Shimokita-Senrogai, where it was commissioned by Odakyu Electric Railway to maintain the planting. This provided Shimokita-Engeibu with a stable base of operations and funding. Third, territorial management tools are needed to visualize citizens or private sector organizations, their territories and bases, and ecosystemic flows and assets in order to assess the current extent of self-organization in the area and which adaptive planning approach is effective to promote areal transformation. Although bases were located in the Shimokitazawa area, self-organization did not occur among actors with different areas of activity in the servant development. Tools and processes that visualize these areas and actors, including non-human elements, could potentially bring about a wider-ranging transformation through adaptive approaches, including NbS [58].

The servant development model analyzed in this study can be applied to cities in both developed and emerging countries. In developed countries, community responsibility is said to be increasing under fiscal austerity and neoliberalism [59]. Servant development provides insights into institutional reforms, offering ways to incorporate citizen self-organization into formal planning. Even in developed European countries with strong urban planning powers, such as the Netherlands, approaches similar to servant development are being explored [60]. Conversely, emerging countries are paying increasing attention to bottom-up planning approaches based on the dynamics of informal activities [61,62]. Thus, the experience of servant development in countries other than Japan can inform the incorporation of community power into planning and its utilization to improve TC.

As for limitations, since this study’s interviewees were limited to a development representative, only the direct impact of urban development could be evaluated. Therefore, it was not possible to assess improvements in TC through collaboration outside of the urban development project between actors. Moreover, this empirical study is limited to a single Japanese project. Therefore, the generalizability of these findings is questionable. Nonetheless, as previously mentioned, the Japanese context resonates with other developed countries such as the Netherlands, where there are similar discussions on urban development strategies, such as organic development [9] in addition to the attention to informal bottom-up dynamics in emergent countries [61,62]. This is expected to lead to further empirical studies.

7. Conclusions

This study examined a case study of Shimokita-Senrogai, where citizen activities, including NbS initiatives, are active and where Odakyu Electric Railway has implemented a development approach called “servant development” to support such citizen activities. The study’s main contribution is to materialize the process for a multiscale RD approach in urban areas, where it is difficult to reach consensus among diverse stakeholders immediately by combining an adaptive planning approach based on the CAS theory with TC. The main finding is identifying the necessary conditions for implementing an RD approach that enhances TC by adapting to urban uncertainties from global climate change to local civic dynamics through the agency of more-than-human actor networks. The conditions are to leverage more-than-human actor networks, their activity ranges, bases, and ecosystemic flows to self-organize, thereby triggering non-linear development trajectories and responses to dynamic environments.

Based on these, this study proposes a methodology to visualize actors, their activity ranges, bases, and ecosystemic flows across multiple territorial scales beyond the development site and its vicinity. The methodology also aims to assess the potential for connections between these elements and institutionalize the realization of such connections as a condition for urban development. This is necessary for moving toward regenerative urban planning with an ecosystemic approach. Therefore, a monitoring and matching system is practically required to coordinate “becoming processes” [63]. This study demonstrates that proximity alone does not ensure effective collaboration. Even when diverse initiatives share geographic proximity, differences in operational scope and stakeholder engagement can hinder self-organization and co-evolution. As demonstrated by Zamani et al. [64], systematic monitoring processes enhance stakeholder participation, legitimacy, and trust, thereby supporting ongoing self-organization and adaptive management. Effective monitoring systems help to identify successful practices and areas needing improvement to continuously inform strategic decisions while fostering greater accountability and transparency in urban governance.