ABSTRACT
During the twentieth century, Japan was transformed from a poor, primarily rural country into one of the world's largest industrial powers and most highly urbanised countries. Interestingly, while Japanese governments and planners borrowed carefully from the planning ideas and methods of many other countries, Japanese urban planning, urban governance and cities developed very differently from those of other developed countries. Japan's distinctive patterns of urbanisation are partly a product of the highly developed urban system, urban traditions and material culture of the pre-modern period, which remained influential until well after the Pacific War. A second key influence has been the dominance of central government in urban affairs, and its consistent prioritisation of economic growth over the public welfare or urban quality of life. André Sorensen examines Japan's urban trajectory from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, paying particular attention to the weak development of Japanese civil society, local governments, and land development and planning regulations.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|1 pages
The legacy of the Tokugawa period
chapter |10 pages
Urbanisation during the Tokugawa period
The Tokugawa period began in 1600 when Tokugawa Ieyasu, the last of three great generals who reunified Japan after a long period of bloody civil wars, won a decisive battle at Sekigahara and established the Pax Tokugawa which was to last for the next two-and-a-half centuries. As an extended period of internal peace after a long period
chapter |14 pages
The spatial structure of castle towns
Over two-and-a-half centuries of Tokugawa rule Japanese cities grew and changed enormously, and urban structure changed along with urban size. These changes were driven partly by military considerations of defensibility, partly by evolving ideas about the spatial segregation of samurai and commoners within the castle towns, and partly by the sheer pressure of enormous population growth and physical expansion. At the
chapter |9 pages
The urban legacy of the Tokugawa period
Although the legacy of the Tokugawa era is diverse, it is possible to divide the main influences of urbanism in the period into two aspects. The first relates to urban tradi- tions. Broadly speaking this includes the idea of the city and the understanding of urbanisation and traditions of urban administration, urban life and urban society. Here we are concerned primarily with traditions of neighbourhood self-government,
chapter |25 pages
The beginnings of modern city planning
The early Meiji period was clearly a time of enormous upheaval and rapid organisa- tional change. Understandably, city planning was not the top priority of the government, which was preoccupied primarily with establishing its own legitimacy, finances, and powers of control, and with national economic growth. The Meiji gov- ernment did nevertheless put significant effort into city planning initiatives, and some
chapter |6 pages
The beginnings of Japanese urban planning
The development of Japan’s first modern city planning system was very much a prod- uct of the social and political context of the Taish period: rapid urban and industrial growth, worsening standards of living for the working class, social strife and a spread- ing labour movement, movements towards greater democratisation and pluralism in political life, and vigorous central government attempts to repress radical political
chapter |22 pages
Implementing the 1919 system
For a number of reasons the 1919 laws failed to enable the kind of positive environment for city planning that had been hoped. In part this was because several of the key finan- cial aspects of the laws were deleted before passage as noted above. Also, the zoning measures as enacted were relatively weak as each zone allowed a wide mixture of dif- ferent uses. For example, almost all commercial and office uses and a wide range of
chapter |5 pages
Major urban changes during the inter-war period
Summarising urban developments of the Taishô period is much more difficult than for the preceding Meiji period, as they were both more extensive and more diverse. Figure 4.13 attempts such a simplified summary using the model castle town introduced in pre- vious chapters. The three most important features of urban change were extensive unplanned growth on the urban fringe; the development of new intra-urban transport
part 5|1 pages
Post-war reconstruction and rapid economic growth
chapter |16 pages
Post-war occupation reforms and reconstruction
Japan faced an enormous task of rebuilding shattered cities, providing housing, and rebuilding an economy that in the previous 15 years had been organised primarily around support of military adventure. Such was the state of post-war devastation that many occupation observers believed there was a serious possibility that Japan would continue to be an economic basket-case for the long term. Mass starvation was pre-
chapter |10 pages
Rapid growth and metropolitan concentration
As Allinson argues, rapid economic growth was the defining characteristic of the early post-war decades (Allinson 1997: 83). During the 1950s and 1960s economic growth was the unquestioned top priority of the central government. Although this focus on increasing GDP to the virtual exclusion of any other priorities ran into increasing opposition during the 1960s, as discussed in Chapter 6, it was, at the outset at least,
chapter |22 pages
Planning and rapid economic growth, 1955–68
During the rapid growth period the overwhelming top priority of the Japanese gov- ernment was to promote economic growth, and the state put all its resources behind its strategy of heavy and chemical industry-led economic expansion. Because there was such a clear necessity to recover from the destruction of war, the alliance of central gov- ernment bureaucrats, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and big business
chapter |26 pages
Implementing the new city planning system of 1968
As noted above, the new city planning system ran into serious problems during its imple- mentation during the 1970s, and by the end of the decade it was understood that sprawl had not been stopped, haphazard development was continuing apace, and new revisions to the planning system were being drafted. The almost complete failure of the new city planning and national land planning systems to fulfil their stated goals stands in striking
part 8|2 pages
From planning deregulation to the bubble economy
chapter |6 pages
Unipolar concentration in Tokyo
Throughout the period up to the bursting of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, Japan posted significantly higher rates of economic growth than any of its major com- petitors in the industrialised world. In the 1970s after a sharp and brief decline following the 1973 oil crisis, economic growth resumed and Japan avoided most of the decade of “stagflation” that dogged the other developed countries in the 1970s, as well
chapter |8 pages
District planning
The introduction of the District Plan system in 1980 was probably the most important addition to the Japanese city planning system since its introduction in 1968. District planning, modelled on the German Bebauungs Plan system (B-Plan), was developed in response to the realisation during the second half of the 1970s that in fundamental ways the high hopes that the 1968 system would allow the improvement of urban
chapter |12 pages
Deregulation
While these efforts to craft a more effective system for detailed local planning and local environmental improvement were being pursued, another major wave of change to the city planning system was building. Starting in the early 1980s, and peaking during the five years that Nakasone Yasuhiro was prime minister (1982–87), deregulation and
chapter |4 pages
The bubble economy
The strength of the Japanese economy during the 1980s, and particularly the gravity- defying climb of land and stock prices from 1986 to 1990 combined to inspire a sense insecurity over Japan’s lack of basic resources and dependence on world markets. As Pempel so aptly describes the situation:
chapter |8 pages
Master Plans
The municipal Master Plan system was indirectly a product of the bubble economy period. After the peak years of land price inflation in 1986 and 1987 weaknesses in the land use planning system were increasingly criticised in the media and in public debate more generally. Particularly widespread was the accusation that weak zoning controls in residential areas had allowed shortages of office space in central Tokyo and speculation
chapter |25 pages
Machizukuri
It is widely believed among planners in Japan that the recent spread of citizen partici- pation in local environmental improvement efforts and in planning processes represents the most hopeful development in Japanese planning in many years. A wide variety of such practices are grouped together under the umbrella designation “machizukuri”. Unfortunately, the term machizukuri has been used to describe an extremely wide
chapter |6 pages
Learning from Japan
The idea that other countries could learn from the successful Japanese experience of rapid economic growth and business management practices was highly tradable in the 1980s at the height of the Japanese economic boom. Few are peddling the Japanese model now that the boom has disappeared and economic growth has been stagnant for a decade. That does not mean that Japan has any less to teach other countries than it
chapter |4 pages
Japanese cities in the twenty-first century
Having come this far in our examination of Japanese urbanisation and planning during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it is hard to resist a brief speculation about what the twenty-first century might hold in store. While it is patently impossible to accurately pre- dict changes in systems as complex as economies and urban systems, a few major factors that will impact future changes are known, and some of the big questions can be posed.
