NEC and Meiji University jointly research the impact of stroller depictions on urban appeal – Verifying that depicting families with strollers in redevelopment plans enhances urban attractiveness –

Nippon Electric Corporation (NEC) is engaged in activities to understand the inherent context of products and spaces (such as environmental products) that require social value, and to create opportunities for them to be chosen by consumers. Focusing on data utilization and methods for proving value, NEC has been organizing issues rooted in the practical work sites of its customers and verifying hypotheses, while jointly advancing verification and validity research from an academic perspective with Associate Professor Takumi Kato of the Faculty of Commerce at Meiji University.

This time, we focused on the people depicted in renderings (plans) of urban redevelopment to improve sustainability. To realize a city where diverse people can spend their time as they wish, not only the space itself but also the expressions and designs that make the space attractive are considered important. In this verification, we examined the impact of stroller depictions on the attractiveness of a city using urban redevelopment spaces 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 depict cities in their redevelopment plans (renderings) and communicate their attractiveness to many people. However, discussions regarding the content of these renderings often focus on spatial elements such as buildings and facilities.

This research analyzed the differences in urban attractiveness based on the depiction of people spending time there. The element focused on here is strollers. The presence of children and families with children is expected to bring vitality to the city and, as exemplified by family restaurants, lower psychological barriers to entry. As a result of a randomized controlled trial examining the difference in urban attractiveness with and without stroller depictions, it was revealed that renderings with stroller depictions received significantly higher evaluations. This effect was valid regardless of gender or age. This finding can be utilized not only for appeals in renderings but also for the institutional design of cities. By creating spaces that are easy for strollers to access, it is expected that the attractiveness of the city will increase for a diverse range of people.

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

Key Points of This Research

• Cities worldwide are fiercely competing to attract residents, making urban branding a crucial policy tool for municipalities and urban developers. Parks are often positioned as symbols in urban branding. Represented by Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York, greenery functions as a symbol of the city. Furthermore, from the perspective of enhancing sustainability, greenery plays an important role, and 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 related companies responsible for redevelopment depict cities in renderings (artist's impressions) and communicate their attractiveness to many people.
• Discussions regarding the content of renderings tend to focus on buildings and facilities, and insufficient knowledge has been accumulated regarding the impact of the "people" depicted. Considering that in general marketing communication, consumers tend to pay attention to the characters using a product or service rather than the product or service itself, the depiction of people in the city within renderings is presumed to be important.
• In this research, we analyzed the difference in urban attractiveness based on the depiction of people in urban parks.