Construction of physical activity friendly residential areas is the urgent task for prevention of future increase of cardiovascular diseases in urban areas. Recent development of global positioning system and portable accelerometer technologies can contribute to this field by providing the baseline evidences of urban dweller's temporaland spatial-patterns of physical activity. In the present study, we developed the analytical package (programs written by C++ and SAS languages) for this purpose and applied to analyze the physical activity patterns of 28 volunteers who resided in a municipality of Metropolitan Tokyo. A land use map on geographic information system (ArcGIS, ESRI Inc.) was used for the analysis of physical activity patterns by seven land use categories. The results of the analysis showed that, among the participants, the average physical activity index (an index produced by accelerometer) was higher when they were in “park” than in “street”, “shopping area”, or “residential area”. Interestingly, total of physical activity index (an indicator of total amount of physical activity) of the participants was higher in“street”than in either of the other land use categories. It was suggested that not only the allocation of parks to residential areas but also the maintenance of walkable streets are the fundamental for physical activity friendly urban planning.

DESCENTE SPORTS SCIENCE Vol.31/THE DESCENTE AND ISHIMOTO MEMORIAL FOUNDATION FOR THE PROMOTION SPORTS SCIENCE