ObjectiveIn the context of improving the human settlements, floral town construction movement was launched by The Flower Association of Japan. Taken the Osaka Flower Green Expo in 1990 as an opportunity, the movement started in 1991 under a multi-participation approach. Based on the main theme of “the harmonious coexistence of nature and mankind”, the movement calls on all society to participate in the environmental construction activities. This paper aims to sort out the development model of the Japanese floral town construction movement from the perspective of multi-participation, and analyze the multi-participation path and the cooperation mode of multiple parties in the construction process. It will provide some reference for China’s new urbanization development and human settlements construction.

MethodBased on the combing of operation and development mode of the movement under multi-participation process, this paper lists 279 construction samples by environmental, social and economic categories and 22 sub-categories of activities from 2003 to 2018. After converting the list into 0-1 variables, samples are clustered by a cluster analysis using SPSS software, with the Ward method and squared Euclidean distance.

ResultThe tree diagram is cut according to the distance between groups and whether more than 3 groups, then 3 groups are obtained: (1) taking individuals and enterprises as main part creating flower landscapes for social contribution purpose, (2) NPOs and governments cooperating to organize public activities, (3) school groups conducting environmental education.

ConclusionThe movement was created by NPO with the opportunity of urban events, and was continuously carried out with the support of the government, residents, other NPOs and corporate social responsibility. Those 4 types of subjects participate in social contribution, public activities and environmental education purpose. Each mode of activity has its focus and cooperates to form a cooperative system of multi-participation.