On January 2017, the book “Life-oriented Behavioral Research for Urban Policy”, Edited by Prof. Junyi Zhang, was formally published by Springer. This is the first book in literature to present a general picture of life choice research from the interdisciplinary perspective.
Even though various dialogues between different disciplines occur here and there, unfortunately, behavioral disciplines with truly interdisciplinary features could not be found in literature for supporting urban policy decisions, which are usually associated with various life domains. The life-oriented approach argues that people’s various life choices, being attributable to quality of life (QOL), are interrelated of each other. In other words, one life choice may not only results from other life choice(s), but also affect other life choice(s). Such interdependencies are essential to understand human decisions.
This book aims to present the life-oriented approach as one of the “common languages” to facilitate the “talk” between different stakeholders for improving people’s QOL.
The life-oriented approach also provides a fundamental theory for supporting research on young people.

A book titled “Life-oriented Behavioral Research for Urban Policy” will be published soon by Springer (editor: Prof. Junyi Zhang, Hiroshima University) (in press)

Summary
This book presents a life-oriented approach, which is an interdisciplinary methodology proposed for cross-sectoral urban policy decisions such as transport, health, and energy policies. Improving people’s quality of life (QOL) is one of the common goals of various urban policies on one hand, while QOL is closely linked with a variety of life choices on the other. The life-oriented approach argues that life choices in different domains (e.g., residence, neighborhood, health, education, work, family life, leisure and recreation, finance, and travel behavior) are not independent of each other, and ignorance of and inability to understand interdependent life choices may result in a failure of consensus building for policy decisions. The book provides evidence about behavioral interdependencies among life domains based on both extensive literature reviews and case studies covering a broad set of life choices. This work further illustrates inter-behavioral analysis frameworks with respect to various life domains, along with a rich set of future research directions. This book deals with life choices in a relatively general way. Thus, it can serve not only as a reference for research, but also as a textbook for teaching and learning in varied behavior-related disciplines.

Unique Selling Points
– Presents a series of life-oriented behavioral studies for public policies by linking them with the quality of life mainly in an urban context
– Provides extensive literature reviews about how interdependent life choices have been captured in different disciplines
– Introduces new empirical evidence of behavioral interdependencies within and across life domains based on a broad set of life-choice data
– Illustrates inter-behavioral analysis frameworks with respect to various life domains (e.g., such as migration, job, residence, travel, health, leisure and tourism, energy consumption)

Contents
Chapter 1 Life-oriented Approach (Junyi ZHANG)
Chapter 2 Empirical Evidence of Behavioral Interdependencies across Life Choices (Yubing XIONG, Junyi ZHANG)
Chapter 3 Lifestyles and Life Choices (Veronique Van ACKER)
Chapter 4 The Car-dependent Life (Junyi ZHANG, Masashi KUWANO, Makoto CHIKARAISHI, Hajime SEYA)
Chapter 5 Household Energy Consumption Behavior (Biying YU, Junyi ZHANG)
Chapter 6 ICT-dependent Life and Its Impacts on Mobility (Giovanni CIRCELL)
Chapter 7 Health-related Life Choices (David PÉREZ BARBOSA, Junyi ZHANG)
Chapter 8 Life-oriented Tourism Behavior Research (Linghan ZHANG, Lingling WU, Junyi ZHANG)
Chapter 9 Influence of Land Use and Transport Policies on Women’s Labor Participation and Life Choices (Yubing XIONG, Junyi ZHANG)
Chapter 10 Mobility of the Elderly (Makoto CHIKARAISHI)
Chapter 11 Risky Behaviors in Life: A Focus on Young People (Ying JIANG, Junyi ZHANG)
Chapter 12 Adaptation of Behavior to Overcome Natural Disasters (Qing-Chang LU, Junyi ZHANG, Lingling WU, A.B.M. Sertajur RAHMAN)
Chapter 13 Mobility Biographies and Mobility Socialisation – New Approaches to an Old Research Field (Joachim SCHEINER)
Chapter 14 Biographical Interactions over the Life Course: Car Ownership, Residential Choice, Household Structure, and Employment/Education (Biying YU, Junyi ZHANG)
Chapter 15 Household Time Use Behavior Analysis: A Case Study of Multidimensional Timing Decisions (Junyi ZHANG, Harry TIMMERMANS)
Chapter 16 Models of Behavioral Change and Adaptation (Soora RASOULI, Harry TIMMERMANS)
Chapter 17 Behavioral Changes in Migration Associated with Jobs, Residences, and Family Life (Junyi ZHANG, Yubing XIONG, Ying JIANG, Nobuhito TANAKA, Nobuaki OHMORI, Ayako TANIGUCHI)
Chapter 18 Future Perspectives of the Life-oriented Approach (Junyi ZHANG)