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Sophie Buhnik is currently a researcher at the French Bureau of the Maison Franco-Japonaise in Tokyo (affiliated with the CNRS and French Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and an Associate researcher at the France-Japan Foundation (EHESS). She holds a PhD in Geography and Urban Planning from Paris 1 « Sorbonne » University. She worked for the DATAR (French Agency for Country Planning and Regional Competitiveness) on plans for the Greater Paris project. In 2012-2013, she was invited to Ritsumeikan University as a fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Her work focuses on issues of access to urban resources in Japan’s shrinking suburbs, at a time when major planning reforms are trying to “right-size” Japanese cities and adapt them to a graying society, but may make them more unequal in the process.

Published in 2017: “The dynamics of urban de-growth in Japanese metropolitan areas: What are the outcomes of urban recentralisation strategies?”, Town Planning Review, 88 (1), pp.79-92.