NEC and Meiji University Conduct Joint Research on the Impact of Stroller Depictions on Urban Appeal: Verifying that Including Families with Strollers in Redevelopment Renderings Enhances City Attractiveness

NEC Corporation is engaged in activities to uncover the inherent context of products and spaces that require social value (such as environmental products) and to create opportunities for them to be chosen by consumers. Focusing on data utilization and methods for proving value, NEC has been working with Associate Professor Takumi Kato of the Meiji University School of Commerce to organize issues rooted in customers' practical fields, conduct hypothesis testing, and perform academic validation and research on validity.

In this study, we focused on what kind of people are depicted in architectural renderings (perspectives) when considering the improvement of sustainability in urban redevelopment. To realize a city where diverse people can spend their time as they wish, it is considered important not only to focus on the space itself but also on the expressions and designs that make people feel its appeal. This study examines the impact of depicting strollers on the appeal of a city, using a redevelopment space as the subject.

One factor in achieving sustainability in urban redevelopment is creating places that diverse people find attractive and want to visit. Municipalities and related companies responsible for redevelopment use renderings to depict the city and communicate its appeal to many people. However, discussions regarding the content of these renderings often focus primarily on spatial elements such as buildings and facilities.

This research analyzed the differences in urban appeal based on the depiction of people spending time in these spaces. The element we focused on was the stroller. The presence of children and families raising children is expected to bring vitality to a city and lower psychological barriers to entry, much like family restaurants. A randomized controlled trial revealed that renderings including strollers received significantly higher ratings for urban appeal compared to those without. This effect was consistent regardless of gender or age. These findings can be applied not only to promotional renderings but also to urban policy design. Creating spaces that are accessible to strollers is expected to increase the city's appeal to a diverse range of people.

The results of this research, a joint study by NEC Corporation and Associate Professor Takumi Kato of the Meiji University School of Commerce, have been accepted for the 2026 International Conference on Management, Tourism and Technologies and will be published in Business and Economics (Springer).

Key Points of the Research

• Cities around the world are engaged in fierce competition to attract residents, making urban branding an important policy tool for municipalities and urban developers. Parks are positioned as symbols in urban branding. As represented by Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York, greenery functions as a symbol of a city. Furthermore, because greenery plays an important role in enhancing sustainability, parks and green spaces are utilized in many redevelopment projects.
• Sustainability requires not only environmental consideration but also the revitalization of the local economy through the gathering of diverse people. Therefore, municipalities and companies responsible for redevelopment use renderings to communicate the city's appeal.
• Discussions on the content of renderings tend to lean toward buildings and equipment, and there has not been sufficient knowledge regarding the impact of the "people" depicted. Given that in general marketing communications, consumers tend to pay more attention to the characters using a product or service than the product or service itself, it is assumed that the depiction of people is also important in urban renderings.
• In this study, we prepared images of an urban park redevelopment as a rendering: one without strollers (control group, Fig. 1) and one with strollers (treatment group, Fig. 2). Participants were randomly assigned to view one of the two and were then asked to evaluate the appeal of the city. As a result, 64.4% of the control group felt the city was attractive, compared to 74.1% in the treatment group, showing a significant difference of approximately 10 percentage points.
• The effect of the stroller was confirmed regardless of gender or age. An improvement of 11 points was seen in women (68.2% to 79.2%) and 7.9 points in men (61.0% to 68.9%). By age, an improvement of 10.7 points was confirmed for those aged 20–44 and 8.4 points for those aged 45–69. Furthermore, the effect was even greater among those with low attitudinal involvement with parks (13.0 points; 37.7% to 50.7%) and those with low park usage frequency (14.0 points; 61.0% to 75.0%). In other words, strollers function as a factor that attracts segments previously uninterested in parks, contributing to the expansion of a city's potential participant base.
• This research extends the knowledge of urban branding into the field of marketing communication and provides valuable evidence regarding the value of strollers in renderings. The finding that the presence of children and families raising children symbolizes urban vitality and lowers psychological barriers to entry can be directly applied to future urban development and town planning practices. Creating spaces that are accessible to strollers is expected to increase the city's appeal to a diverse range of people.

Future Initiatives

NEC will continue to work on creating products and spaces that are valuable to both the environment and consumers through data and scientific verification. With an eye toward both solving social issues and ensuring economic viability, we will continue to take on the challenge of deriving specific suggestions that lead to expressions that reach consumers and inform decision-making through co-creation with companies, regions, and research institutions.