ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Kyoto, the imperial capital of Japan for more than a thousand years, was facing a dilemma. Its publicly accessible traditions, particularly the townscape and historical architecture, found increasing recognition as an important resource. Yet, the modern development that a city of nearly one-and-a-half million inhabitants also requires, at a moment when many of its supporting pillars – such as the traditional craft industry – were crumbling, was not easily harmonised with the traditional stock. This book has been about the Kyotoites’ struggles to come to terms with the problem of bringing the past into the future. Many inhabitants of that famed city insist on their right to live with its past, not only as documented in books or etched into their personal memories, but also through encountering perceptible traces in their everyday environment. Yet, for a long time, this right went largely unrecognised, at least outside the immediate surroundings of famous temples, shrines and palaces. Within only a few years, however, the situation has turned upside down, with the new town-scape ordinance introducing a level of public control of the urban environment unheard of in Japan. Before pointing out some of the wider ramifications for the study of cities and Japan, let me briefly reiterate the results of the previous chapters.
