MBT is a shortened term for Medicine Based-Town (A Town with Medicine as its base)

　Originating from the idea of "Indoor Environmental Medicine" advocated by Dr. Hiroshi Hosoi, President of Nara Medical University, the concept expands into the realm of town and urban scale.

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　If we refer the 「Human Body」as a small vessel which travels through space and time delivering the genes of human society to the next generation, 「The City」(man-kinds ultimate creation) can be referred as the mother ship which delivers the genes of our society. Currently it can seem as if the opportunities between the fields of urban planning and medicine is scarce. But under the concepts of MBT, the overlapping of the research fields pertaining to “Human” health and “Urban” sustainability, aid in supporting the current societal demands and issues.

　As we enter the 21st century, we are experiencing design issues relating to Japans shrinking society. This phenomenon is something that we have not experienced in the past. Thus new methods pertaining to smart shrinking are called for and are in question. We must especially deal with issues pertaining to the growth of aging population, which is rapidly increasing compared to global standards. Also the structure of traditional families has been torn apart as single-person households have increased, causing a dependence on local communities for nursing and public welfare services. But on the contrary, local communities are starting to collapse, being forced into a situation where it is difficult to over look future visions. A possible plan to breakthrough from this current situation is the realization of local comprehensive care, through the rebuilding of local communities, the entry of private businesses and the cultivation of non-profit organizations. Medical welfare also needs to take into consideration the social well being which aspires a variety of comfortable and affluent life style meeting the needs of a variety of individuals. In order to support this new form of medical welfare a new concept which includes “Town・Urban・Regional” perspectives will help tie physical and social space.

　Under these social setting the distance between the fields pertaining to medical welfare policy and urban planning is rapidly shrinking. The resolution of various issues through the fusion of urban planning studies and medicine, through observing realistic lifestyles with the “town” as the stage, will become a big movement within the academic field in the near future. In todays aging and mature society the social demographic that affects the urban fabric can no longer be measured by a uniform group, where values and physical situations have become diverse. Thus it will be important to construct individual social networks and life history, which represents the unique characteristics, which will help provide a wide-range of social services. Historically the fields of medicine and urban planning, community design has dealt with individual human beings. Thus the fusion of the accumulated experience within the two fields can potentially provide techniques to energize residents and the city. This physical and social spatial concepts which help achieve these social goals is non other than Medicine-Based Town(MBT).

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（Nara Medical University + Waseda University Research Report ”Medicine-Based Town Vision”）