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Disparities in access to sustainable dining options across the Tokyo Metropolis

Nature Cities volume 2, pages 387–399 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Urbanization and fast-paced lifestyles have shaped diverse culinary landscapes in global cities. Yet, access to sustainable dining options remains highly uneven due to complex interactions between socioeconomic systems and individual behaviors. Here we introduce an integrated framework for evaluating sustainable dining accessibility, leveraging data from 3,649 menu items and 112,892 restaurants in Tokyo, Japan. Our findings highlight a pronounced clustering of restaurants around railway stations, underscoring the pivotal role of transit-oriented development in shaping urban dining patterns. Then, a sustainable dining choice was assessed through a multidimensional approach that incorporates economic preferences, environmental impacts along the supply chain and the nutritional quality of menu offerings. Further analysis uncovers severe inequalities in sustainable dining accessibility across station vicinities, railway lines and administrative wards, with up to 9 million daily passengers exposed to unsustainable dining environments. To address these disparities, we propose targeted interventions, including optimized restaurant spatial distribution, to enhance accessibility in underserved areas. By integrating these solutions, this study offers actionable insights for urban planners, policymakers and citizens, contributing to planetary health and advancing sustainability in urban dining systems.

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Fig. 1: Nutritional values, carbon footprints across different restaurant types and spatial distribution across Tokyo.
Fig. 2: SDOI in railway station vicinities.
Fig. 3: SDOI across Tokyo’s railway lines.
Fig. 4: SDOIs across Tokyo’s 23 wards.
Fig. 5: Optimization scenarios for SDOI improvement around high-foot-traffic stations.
Fig. 6: Framework for sustainable dining out analysis and optimization.

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Data availability

Public transport data are obtained from Japan’s National Land Information Division (https://nlftp.mlit.go.jp/ksj/gml/datalist/KsjTmplt-S12-v2_3.html), and dining out expenditures and frequencies for the year 2023 are derived from the FIES (https://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/kakei/index.html). Additionally, we utilized the 3EID database, which provides embodied energy and emission intensity values for Japan’s approximately 400 industrial sectors based on input–output tables (https://www.cger.nies.go.jp/publications/report/d031/jpn/page/what_is_3eid.htm). Aggregated or de-identified data supporting the findings of this study are available on GitHub at https://github.com/LiqiaoHuang/Sus-Din-Out.

Code availability

Methods for analyzing sustainable dining practices in Tokyo are available on GitHub at https://github.com/LiqiaoHuang/Sus-Din-Out.

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Acknowledgements

This research is funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI B (grant no. JP24K03146, Y.Y.) and KAKENHI C (grant no. JP23K11542, Y.L.). L.H. is supported by JSPS DC2 Program and the Leadership Development Program for Ph.D. (LDPP) of the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Technology Management for Innovation, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Japan

    Liqiao Huang, Xuejie Lv, Sebastian Montagna, Yoshikuni Yoshida & Yin Long

  2. Department of Urban Planning, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

    Yuyan Huang

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Contributions

Conceptualization: L.H. and Y.L. Data curation: L.H., Y.H. and X.L. Formal analysis: L.H., Y.H. and S.M. Methodology: L.H. and S.M. Software: L.H., Y.H. and S.M. Visualization: L.H. and Y.H. Writing—original draft: L.H. and Y.L. Writing—review and editing: L.H., Y.H. and Y.L. Supervision: Y.L. and Y.Y.

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Correspondence to Yin Long.

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Nature Cities thanks Benigna Boza-Kiss, Huabo Duan and Ruichang Mao for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Huang, L., Huang, Y., Lv, X. et al. Disparities in access to sustainable dining options across the Tokyo Metropolis. Nat Cities 2, 387–399 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-025-00235-9

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