ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the case of Nezu and Yanaka to contrast and compare their development and especially that of their alleyways. One district in the eastern city area, known as YaNeSen, made up the neighbourhoods of Yanaka, Nezu and Sendagi. Nezu is located in a part of Tokyo that escaped the damages of the 1923 Earthquake and the bombing of the Second World War, next to a few other areas such as Yanaka. Yanaka district is located in the ward of Taito-ku, in Eastern Tokyo, and 8,282 people lived in the area in 2015. Yanaka is, throughout Tokyo, known as a special historic district worthwhile to be preserved, and thus there is consensus that the area should be protected. Yanaka consists of different urban forms, larger plots for temples and shrines, adjacent cemeteries and dense neighbourhood units with different types of low-rise housing with alleyways in between.
