The Usefulness of Urban Parks and Universal Design Sports in Hyper-Aging Japan — Reconsidering the Practice of a Community-Based Inclusive Society through the Lens of Social Isolation and Social Connection: An Expanded Re-analysis of the 2023 Adelaid

This paper is an expanded re-analysis of the oral presentation “The Usefulness of Urban Parks and Universal Design Sports in Hyper-aging Japan,” delivered at the 2023 Joint International Congress in Adelaide. The original presentation was framed by Japan’s super-low-birth-rate, super-aged society, in which life challenges are becoming increasingly complex while formal welfare systems remain organized by fields such as ageing, disability, children, and health conditions. Urban parks and universal design sports were presented as a practical way to implement Japan’s policy vision of a community-based inclusive society in everyday life. In 2024, Japan’s Act on Promotion of Policy for Loneliness and Isolation came into effect, and in 2025 the WHO Commission on Social Connection framed social connection as a global public-health issue. Rather than replacing the original community-based inclusive society framework with social isolation, this paper uses social isolation and social connection as later analytical lenses to re-describe how the 2019–2022 practice supported relationships between people.