Running through the cities and landscapes of Japan
MUP student and marathoner Max Hoffman shares his experience in Kanazawa Exchange Program
In June, Max Hoffman (back row right) was among 10 MUP and BAED students who traveled to Kanazawa, Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo for a three-week exchange program studying urban planning practices in Japanese cities. The program is directed by Assistant Professor Camden Miller (front row center). Here, students explore the Higashiyama historic district in Kyoto, home to several of the city's kagai, or geisha districts. Photo courtesy of Cameron Lombard
Rachel Teaman July 16, 2026
Max Hoffman is an urban planner with a running obsession – or, perhaps, a runner with a planning obsession. Both exploratory pursuits have shaped the MUP student’s perspective on the world and taken him to places far and wide – most recently across the countryside of Japan as part of the Kanazawa summer exchange program at UB.
Mixing in daily 15-mile morning runs with excursions to Edo-period castles, traditional Japanese villages, bustling transit hubs, and a bullet train tour of the country’s interior, Hoffman took in the rural and urban landscapes of the island country, improving both his times and his knowledge of Japanese practices in urban planning and design.
The three-week exchange program, offered by the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and directed by Camden Miller, assistant professor of urban planning, offers MUP and BAED students an immersive experience of Japanese cities, their history, and Eastern philosophy-influenced approach to urban planning and design, with stops in Kanazawa, Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo.
“I wanted to do this study abroad program because Asian cities are structured very differently from American cities, and I’d heard the experience of walking through them is totally unique. I wanted to experience that for myself,” says Hoffman, who took part in a Konan University-affiliated Japanese study abroad program in summer 2025 as a final-year BA in Environmental Design student. “Last year, I was immersed in the culture and language of Japan as I lived with a host family for six weeks. This trip was entirely focused on urban planning. I am glad I got to experience both.”
For Hoffman, who has run competitively since high school and recently added marathons and ultra-marathons to his regimen (in April, he placed in the top 2% of the Boston Marathan’s field of 30,000+ runners), there was never a question that running would play a part in his experience of Japan.
“Running in Japan is definitely fun. I ran a lot into the rural areas, into the mountains, on quiet city streets, and also along the channeled river paths of Kyoto and Osaka,” he said, adding that Osaka was his favorite city to run in.
“Japan has something about it. Everything is so picturesque – the trees, the traditional Japanese houses, the rice paddies, and just the landscape in general.”
He says running instills in him a different appreciation for place and urban design. "As a runner, you're taking in the city with a different purpose, because it's not just about getting from point A to point B."
Max Hoffman competes in the 2026 Boston Marathon, where he placed in the top 2 percent of the race's 30,000+ runners.
Historic preservation is deeply embedded in Japanese culture, with many of its castles, shrines, and temples rebuilt multiple times after fires over the centuries. Here, students gather in front of one such structure, the Osaka Castle in Japan's second largest city (and Hoffman's favorite city for running).
In Japan, Hoffman's encounters with place while running added a different dimension to learnings from the program, many of which are documented in the scrapbook Hoffman compiled as one of the course’s deliverables. For instance, on the Kanazawa portion of the trip, where the group of 10 MUP and BAED students met with local planners and studied the 400-year-old city alongside students from Kanazawa University, Hoffman learned about the Japanese planning concept of Machizukuri and its emphasis on localized, citizen-driven planning. He says this philosophy was evident both in walk-abouts with the group and on his early morning runs.
“This collectivist philosophy has a larger effect on the community, often spilling beyond the borders of a neighborhood. A well-preserved shrine in an historic district, for instance, will influence the surrounding and sometimes less regulated districts, where you see the community come together to restore their own lesser-known shrines.”
“Meanwhile, on my morning runs, I would see shopkeepers sweeping the sidewalk in front of their store, making sure it was perfectly clean,” he says. “It’s sort of ingrained in Japanese culture to do for the community rather than for oneself. Japan is also a very clean country. Its public space is well cared for.”
Hoffman took such an interest in the philosophy of Machizukuri as an agent of placemaking in Japan that he made it the subject of the 10-minute documentary video each student produced as the course’s concluding deliverable.
Scrapbook selections
Throughout the three-week program, students documented their observations of urban design and placemaking in a scrapbook journal.
The rural Shirikawa Go village outside Kanazawa is a UNESCO world heritage site famous for its gassho zukuri housing, found nowhere else in the country. Hoffman writes in his journal: "The way of life in Shirakawa Go is harmonious with nature and aims to maintain balance. There is a concept in Japanese culture called ware tada taru wo shiru, which translates roughly to 'I know contentment'."
The Kyoto Imperial Castle housed emperors for 500 years starting in the 1300s and has been rebuilt multiple times after fires over the centuries. Tucked behind it are lush gardens that Hoffman writes, "make you completely forget you are within a massive city. The sound is isolating where you cannot hear the running of cars or buses only a short ways away."
The Kōdaiji Temple outside Kyoto was constructed at the end of the Warring States period at the start of the 17th century. "The entire space of the temple is a gradual shift from the busy town to isolated nature. The entrance....leads you to various Buddhist temples for prayer. Once past the first few buildings, you gain access to the Zen gardens. Pushing further, you reach the forest."
Accustomed to mapping out itineraries and appreciating the importance of a second, Hoffman has also taken to mass transit – and transit-oriented development – in Japan.
“Some of my most memorable experiences in Japan are riding their transit system. You can get most places as fast as you would a car. It’s freeing, really. There’s less stigma than here in America, with the buses in Kanazawa so packed that people are standing. The trains come and go so frequently and on time that they’re incredibly convenient,” he says, adding that the Shinkansen bullet train system measures its delays in “seconds over a year.”
“Japan can teach planners in this country about the impact of transit-oriented development. Like in Tokyo, for example, the three major centers of the city are built around its major transit hubs – the Shinjuku station, Tokyo station, and Shibuya station. Each one of these feels like a downtown. This phenomenon was relatively similar in all the cities we visited.”
Writes Hoffman in his scrapbook entry for the Shibuya Sky overlook in Tokyo: "Being on top of Shibuya Sky helps put into perspective how large of a city Tokyo really is. You can also visibly see the polycentric form of Tokyo forming a triangle and highlighting how important transit-oriented development is." Photo courtesy of Max Hoffman
Kanazawa Station is the city's main transit hub, where the Shinkansen bullet train passes through. Shares Hoffman: "Everything in the city moves through the station, including buses. It’s become a sort of symbol of the city, with its grand wooden gate often the first image that pops up on a Google search of Kanazawa.”
With some of his favorite views – while walking, riding, or running – including ancient shrines and temples, Hoffman says historic preservation is almost inherent to Japanese culture. In 1975, the central government put into place a system of “preservation districts” to protect historic cities, towns, and villages, including castle towns like Kanazawa and those built around shrines and temples.
“Many of the temples or castles we visited have burned down multiple times, due to World War II and even just their dominant use of wood as a building material. They have all been rebuilt,” he says adding that the Kyoto Imperial Palace, residence for emperors since the 1500s, has been repeatedly plagued by fire. “They’ve rebuilt it every single time.”
The practice is deeply embedded into planning decisions in Kanazawa, where building height limitations in modern areas surrounding the historic Higashi Chaya District ensure uninterrupted views of the preserved Edo-period streetscape and its rows of traditional geisha teahouses.
The issue is being contested today as the city faces demographic shifts due to population aging and out-migration to mega cities like Tokyo and Osaka. Kanazawa planners are attempting to pull the city back in and concentrate development within the city limits, Hoffman says, which has put pressure on the city to raise the allowable height of buildings.
“This is a major concern for planners in Kanazawa,” says Hoffman, who, along with the group, researched the issue and presented their findings to students and faculty from Kanazawa University. “We decided against removing the height restrictions. The preservation districts are the reason people come to Kanazawa. It’s sort of the image of the city, and it would damage that if they build too high.”
Students met with local officials and planning professionals in Kanazawa as part of their intensive study of the historic city's approach to urban planning. Here they meet with the Mayor of Kanazawa, Takahasi Murayama, as part of their tour. The visit was chronicled in the local newspaper.
All of this comes back to UB, and the future of urban planning.
Hoffman, whose Japan runs counted as training for the 32-mile Adirondacks ultra-marathon he’s competing in at the end of this week, says he now has creative solutions to many of the same problems challenging American cities.
"The value of study abroad, from a planning perspective, is that it exposes you to other cities and countries as well as planning ideas and solutions that you just can’t get in the classroom," he says. “I will definitely use the planning ideas I've learned in Japan in my studies at UB."
- Max Hoffman
The value of study abroad, from a planning perspective, is that it exposes you to other cities and countries as well as planning ideas and solutions that you just can't get in the classroom.
Students visit Osaka's Umeda Sky Building, a mixed-use skyscraper on the outskirts of the Umeda business district featuring two towers interconnected via glass bridges, escalators, and elevators crossing the open atrium. Photo courtesy of Cameron Lombard
