13
Tokyo
A speculator and builders’
paradise
Shuji Funo
Introduction
From its origin as a
small castle town[1]
until the end of the Edo Era (1603-1868), urbanization in Tokyo (formerly know
as Edo) seems to have followed an orthogenetic process. The Tokugawa Shogunate
closed Japan to foreign countries with the exception of the port of Deshima at
Nagasaki (opened to only the Dutch) from 1641 to 1853.[2] Japan continued
to stay at the periphery of European World Economy, though the silver from
Iwami Ginzan (silver mine) exported through Deshima did make a small
contribution. Japan accepted no immigrants from outside during this so-called sakoku
(seclusion) era. It is, therefore, a
unique example of urbanization within the formation of the Modern World System.
In the mid-seventeenth century,
Tokyo’s population reached one million - matching London and Paris - although
its huge urban village form did not resemble its European counterparts. Japanese society gradually opened to
the world since 1853. Imperial
rule was restored in 1868, and Edo was
renamed Tokyo, meaning Eastern
Kyoto (Capital), as the new capital of Japan in 1869. Tokyo today is a mega city.[3] The city
has transformed from a huge village to a global capital centre over the past
150 years.
Edo[4] was established
as the Shogun’s capital, even though Kyoto (where the Emperor resided) remained the formal capital of Japan. The Tokugawa Bakufu Shogunate controlled all of Japan,
including Kyoto. It is obvious that the directors of Edo were the Shoguns, who introduced
control systems for both land and people in the early Edo period. Political
authority in Japan was divided amongst a centralized and bureaucratised
military regime and some 250 bureaucratised feudal domains called Han. Daimyōs,
the governors of the Han, were obliged to visit Edo with levies for the Shogun
once a year (sankin kōtai system). They were classified according to their
degree of loyalty, and were given land and goods based on the Shogun’s
evaluation of their accomplishments.
All building lots[5]
were arranged hierarchically around the Edo castle in the centre. Edo’s spiral
pattern of moats and roads, as if the centric power of Shogun absorbed
the power of people, is very unique. Daimyōs more faithful to the Shogun
received larger residential sites nearer to Edo castle. Edo was a highly
controlled city where residential quarters among classes (Hudai Daimyōs
(insiders), Tozama Daimyōs (outsiders), hatamoto/gokenin (antrustion/inmate),
chōnin (townspeople)) were strictly segregated according to hierarchy of
Edo society (Si Nou Kou Shō (samurai
(knight)-farmers-craftsman-merchant) system).
Figure 1. Diagram of Edo spatial structure (After M. Naito 1967).
Following the
Meiji Restoration, the Emperor moved from Kyoto to Tokyo, which at last became
the capital of Japan both nominally and actually. The Emperors, however, did not
become the directors of Tokyo. The New Meiji Government took the initiative in
restructuring Edo as a modern capital comparable to
European capitals such
as London and Paris. The central government invited and
hired foreign engineers to create the new face of the city before reaching the same level
of industrialization in western countries. The modernization of Tokyo in a Western
image was the prime objective.
The
directors of Tokyo were the Meiji Governors, who were advised by western
architects and urban planners and promoted modern city planning. From the Meiji
Restoration onward, Japan continued to import concepts
and systems of urban planning from the west, including Baron G.E. Haussemann’s grand
projects of Paris in late nineteenth century; the Nazi national
land planning during the Second World War; the Greater London
Plan after the Second World War; and the German B (Bebauungs)-Plan of the early
1980s.
Also important
for Tokyo were the disasters – wars and earthquakes – that changed the city dramatically.
The ‘scrap and build’ process was a real driving force of Tokyo’s
transformation. The directors of urban change, especially after the 1960s, were
speculators and builders. Twice destroyed in the twentieth century (by
earthquake in 1923 and aerial bombardment in 1945), Tokyo emerged as a
speculator and builders’ paradise, a true global city, in the 1980s. Today,
Tokyo is comprised of over 12 million inhabitants and one-fourth of the
Japanese population lives in the greater metropolitan area.[6] The mega-city seems to be awaiting another catastrophe unless measures to
change its over-centralization are taken.
Notwithstanding all the changes, there is one invariant area, which Roland Barthes (1915-80)[7] called ‘void’ or ‘vacant’, in the centre of Tokyo. That is the Emperor’s palace complex, where Edo castle was once located. It is remarkable that this mega-city has been able to preserve a large natural precinct in its centre for over 400 years.
Dreams of occidentalists:
Towards a Western-style capital
Due to the drastic change of social
system by Meiji Restoration, Tokyo’s population dropped from one million to
about 600,000. One of the most urgent tasks of Meiji
New Government was to remodel Edo into a modern capital. In 1869, Japan’s first
railway was opened and the first steam locomotive started running in 1872 between from
Shimbashi to Yokohama. In 1885, a cabinet system of government was adopted and
Japan established a modern nation-state political system, drafting the Constitution
of the Japanese Empire in 1889.
Two projects are
symbolic of modern urban planning[8] in Tokyo. One is the
Ginza renga gai (Ginza Brick Quarter) project (1872–77), and the other is the Hibiya Kanchō Shūtyū Keikaku (Governmental Offices Concentration project) (1886–87) at
Kasumigaseki.
The Ginza district, where many
merchants and craftsmen had gathered in the Edo period, was becoming a new centre
of Western civilization because of its location near Tsukiji (a protected settlement for
foreigners) to the east and Shinbashi (connected to Yokohama’s
international port) to the south. The Ginza
renga gai project was
launched to refashion the entire Ginza district in red
brick after the great fire of 1872. Brick was adopted not only for fire
protection, but also to create a showpiece with a European flavour.
The directors of this project were
Shigenobu Ohkuma[9] (1838–1922), the Minister of
Finance, and Kaoru Inoue[10] (1835–1915), the Deputy
Minister. Together with
many other bureaucrats, they lived in the Ginza area and were key proponents of Western
civilization. English architect Thomas James Waters[11] with
his brother Albert Waters were invited to prepare plans for the
area. Construction took nearly a decade and the project was completed in
1877. 2,855 buildings were made, one third of which were two-storey brick
buildings with colonnade and balconies. The streets were lined with maples,
willows and gaslights,
creating the first commercial street with a European atmosphere in Japan. Georgian-style streetscape were transferred to the Far East and
suddenly emerged in the central part of Tokyo in this manner. The project,
however, was not welcomed by residents. Newspapers at that time criticised
the project as unsuitable for Japanese climate and claimed that this planning would encourage beriberi outbreaks. Almost all trees withered and died. The brick
structures were soon abandoned because of frequent earthquakes in Japan.
Figure ２. Ginza Brick Quarter Project 1872.
Most of the daimyō land plots in the vicinity of the new Imperial
Palace (Edo castle) were claimed by various agencies of new government as sites
for offices. The project to build Central Business District for government
offices was launched after the Cabinet System was
adopted in 1885.
The Director who proposed the project was again
Kaoru Inoue, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and an enthusiastic occidentalist.
First, he designated an English architect Josiah Condor,[12] the
father of modern Japanese architecture and designer of the Rokumeikan (an
elaborate hotel and a symbol of Western Civilization in 1883) to make plans for
new office blocks, which were never implemented. Later, Herman Ende
(a professor of the Bau-akademie and a technical adivisor of O.E.L.F. von
Bismarck, the first Prime Minister of Deutsches Reich and
Willhelm Böckman[13]
from Germany) were invited to plan and design this Central District of
Tokyo. They prepared a
master plan which included a central Assembly Hall far bigger than that of the
German Empire (built four years before), based on baroque urban planning
concepts.
The project was
not implemented because of financial concerns raised by James Hobrecht, a
civil engineer responsible for the Berlin Plan in 1862. Hobrecht had carried out many projects in
Moscow, Cairo, and Alexandria in addition to Berlin, and was the most famous of
foreign engineers invited to Japan during Meiji Era. Ende
edited the project and only two buildings were constructed on the site (half of which
is now Hibiya Park), the first example of a western public park in Tokyo.
Amidst the planning of the flamboyant projects
like Ginza Brick Quarter, the Hibiya
Governmental Offices Concentration Projects and Mitsubishi Londontown projects,[14] various
strategies called Shikukaisei (urban block improvement) to reform
Tokyo were discussed. In 1880, the governor of Tokyo Michiyuki Matsuda(1839–82) published the first Shikukaisei program.
Akimasa Yoshikawa (1841–1920), the next governor, followed
up the program supported by the Ministry of Interior. The major concern of
Yoshikawa’s program was to revitalize and develop transportation networks that
could be the base of modern industries via an international port (although
Matsuda’s plan laid more stress on commercial development). The Capital of the
Great Japanese Empire or a Metropolis for modern capitalism, that was the
issue.
The directors of this effort were Ministry of
Interior headed by Aritomo Yamagata[15] (1838–1922) and newly rising entrepreneurs like Eiichi
Shibusawa (1840–1931) who founded the first national
bank in 1877. The first legislation in Japan to
facilitate city planning, Tokyo Shikukaisei Jorei, was enforced
in 1888. It was a 16-point initiative that created a city planning board and
set in motion various improvements to infrastructure, especially in the
downtown area. The greatest attention was given to road construction. The model
was the Great Reform of Paris by Baron Georges-Eugene Haussemann (1809–91). However,
because of cholera outbreaks, special attention was given to the water supply
and sewage removal, and
consequently, road network reform was interrupted.[16]
The fruits that Tokyo Shikukaisei accomplished
until 1916 were enlargement of streets for trams, establishment of water supply
and sewage treatment and installation of Hibiya Park. Most of sites of the Daimyō’s
residences and temples were converted for newly needed facilities.
Dreams of nationalists or colonists:
Towards an ideal city
The Industrial Revolution in Japan started in the 1880s
and Tokyo absorbed a huge migratory population from rural areas. The population reached nearly two million at the beginning of twentieth century. Three famous slum areas called hinminkutu
(caves of the poor people) appeared within Tokyo from the 1890s onward. During the Taisho Era (1912–26), the number of wage earners increased in
the Japanese cities, and an increasing proportion of citizens came to lead consumer
lifestyles. The
Japanese economy was already involved in the world economy in 1920s. The population
of Tokyo had reached 3.7 million in 1920.
Tokyo had become so large that Tokyo shi (municipal government) could not manage the urban and housing problems. Therefore, legislation was established to control and regulate the urban expansion. The Toshi Keikaku Hou (Town Planning Act) was adopted in 1919 along with Shigaichi Kenchikubutu Hou, the first Municipal Area Building Law in Japan. The word toshi keikaku, or urban planning, was used for the first time in late 1920s. The emphasis continued to be on infrastructure development in order to establish modern industry. These acts and building codes adopted a Zoning System to delineate Fire-protection Zones and to identify districts within the city for special uses. It also provided for land readjustment such as the straightening of roads and property lines in suburban areas expected to transform from farms to houses. The concepts and methods of land readjustment were taken from Adiches[17] Law of Germany.
Japanese architects opened their eyes to urban
issues in the latter part of Meiji Era, but could not yet afford to carry out
urban projects. A typical example is Shigeyoshi Fukuda (1887–1971), a city architect
and engineer who launched the ‘New Tokyo’ Plan in 1918. He estimated that the
population of Tokyo would be 6.76 million after 50 years (1961) and that its area
would grow 3.6 times, assuming a density of 250 persons/hectare. His ‘New
Tokyo’ Plan was based
on this individual idea and remained unrealised.
In September 1923, the Great Kantō Earthquake[19] struck
Tokyo and resulting fires burned down the city centre. It reduced 60 percent of Tokyo to
ashes, reverting it physically to the beginning of Meiji restoration. This
might be said to be the first true opportunity to change Tokyo, since
the resulting reconstruction projects were actually based on the first comprehensive
reform proposals.
Shimpei Gotō[20] (1857–1929), mayor of Tokyo (1920–23), was appointed to lead the
reconstruction and drew up plans. He was a national
figure with experience as an administrator in Taiwan (Formosa), Manchuria
(North Eastern China), and had
played a leading role to draft Toshi Keikaku Hou (Town Planning Act 1919). Gotō established the Tokyo Institute for Municipal Research soon after he
had become mayor in 1920, inviting Charles Austin Beard[21] (1874–1948) as a principal advisor and proposing a master plan for the city even prior to the emergency. His plan included new
street lines and wider streets, reorganization of the rail network,
improvements to water and sewer systems, and creation of open
spaces.
Gotō is often considered as the father of modern urban planning in Japan. Only few elements of the master plan, however, were
actually accomplished, because of its cost and the opposition of powerful
landowners. Land acquisition was a major issue of urban planning
from the beginning.
The
Dōjunkai
(Foundation for Restoration after the Great Kantō earthquake), was established with donations from foreign
countries, and became the first
body supplying public housing in Japan. It began to build collective houses as well as detached and
semi-detached houses. It also initiated slums upgrading projects and carried out land readjustments.
The Showa Era (1926–89) has difficult beginnings because
of the Great Earthquake and the World Economic Crisis (1929). In addition Japan was heading
for war (1931–45). Wartime planning, however, created new changes
in Tokyo as new transportation systems were introduced. In 1927
Japan’s first subway line opened, in 1931 Tokyo Airport was completed in
Haneda, and in 1941 the Port of Tokyo was opened. In 1932, the outline of Tokyo was expanded by
combining adjacent 82 towns and villages into what was called Dai Tokyo[22] (Greater Tokyo). By 1935,
the number of people living in Tokyo had reached 6.36 million, comparable to
the populations of New York and London. In 1943, the dual administrative system of
Tokyo-fu and Tokyo-shi was abolished, and were consolidated to
form Tokyo Metropolis. The Metropolitan administrative system was thus established,
and a governor was appointed.
In 1941, the Pacific War broke out. Ironically, the only realized examples of Japanese modern urban planning took place in its colonies in Taiwan, Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula. The Datong City Plan and Dalian Plan in China were famous Japanese colonial projects. Japanese architects considered the colony as an experimental field to realize ideals of modern architecture and city planning. Colonial urban planning reminds us that top to bottom urban planning requires political power and will to realize it. The power of the state as a whole was director to implement colonial urban planning. Japanese architects and planners were indebted to Nazi planning concepts during this period.
Figure ３. Datong City Plan, China, 1939.
A central government committee proposed
the ‘Tokyo Green Belt Plan’ in 1939. The plan included a green belt
encircling Tokyo for protection of scenic spots and also for air
defence, but never
materialized due to the lack of time and financial resources. Here the
director was war itself.
In the final phase of the Second World War, Tokyo was bombed 102 times, including the heaviest air raid on 10 March 1945, in which many citizens lost property or were killed.
Dreams of futurists: Towards an
international metropolis
The war came to an end on 15 August 1945, when Japan’ acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. Much of Tokyo had been in ruins by the
bombings and by October 1945, the population had fallen to 3.49 million, half
its level in 1940.
Tokyo again reverted to tabula rasa.
Figure ４. Tokyo Ruins by Bombing 1945.
The shortage[23] of
dwelling units, lost and needed for families coming back from colonies outside
was estimated at 4.2 million at the conclusion of the war. Building shelters
and managing daily life was very hard.
It took few years to commence the reconstruction plan. Eiyo Ishikawa[24](1893–1955), the Tokyo government’s chief planner, had already prepared
a ‘War Damage Rehabilitation Plan’ during the war, adopting a symmetrical radial
and ring-road network with spaced green belts, and identifying of
land uses through zoning. It was too idealistic to be implemented. This concept of symmetrical radial and ring-road network with spaced green belts, however, had continued to the influential model
until Kenzo Tange (1913–) proposed the linear model in 1960. Dai
Tokyo Tiku Keikaku (Greater Tokyo Regional Planning Model) of 1940 was
also based on this concept such as those of S. Fukuda’s plan and S. Gotō’s
plan.
From the end of the War onward, the director
was GHQ of the American Occupation Forces until Japan’s return to international
community via the San Francisco peace treaty in 1951. One
year after the war, the Special City Planning Law was enacted and large-scale reconstruction
plans were made by
architects and planners for several cities. In May
1947, the Constitution of Japan, based on the doctrine of democratic sovereignty
and the Local Government Act was promulgated. The first Governor of Tokyo was elected under the new system. In 1949, Tokyo
Metropolis started the 23-ku system. The Capital Construction Law was
passed in 1950. This law established the Capital Construction Committee; a
national organization devoted to the goal of Tokyo’s reconstruction, and created
the Emergency Five-Year Capital Construction Plan. However, due to severe economic
conditions, it was impossible to effectively realize these plans and problems
were left for the next generation to solve. Land readjustment
projects were planned in many districts of Tokyo but decision-making was overly time consuming. Competitions for reconstruction programs were held, but the ruined
economy did not permit
their implementation.
The real reconstruction started with the
outbreak of Korean War (1950–53), and special procurement demand arising from the War. The Japanese economy
steadily recovered during the 1950s and post-war economic reconstruction was completed
roughly ten years later. A Capital Region Development Plan was seriously considered in order
to control the excessive population concentration. To this end, a Capital
Region Development Law[25] was
enacted in 1956 to replace the Capital Construction Law of 1950. This co-centric radial plan was modelled after the Greater London Plan(1944) by
Sir Patrick Abercrombie(1879–1957), and was based on the idea of strong
controls. Laws were promoting the construction of industrial satellite cities and restricting
factory locations in existing urbanized. Earlier in 1955, the
Japan Housing Corporation[26] had
been established as a semi-public organization to carry out large-scale housing
construction and housing site development in metropolitan areas. Their
activities ushered a new era in town construction in Japan. New towns
intended for middle-income level families were built one after another in the
suburbs.[27] It should be
noted that new towns created in Japan were very different from the self-contained
new towns of England, which both provided work, places and housing. This was
the inevitable result of the conditions prevailing in Japan at the time.
In the 1960s Japan
entered a period of high-level economic growth. In 1962, the
population of Tokyo broke the 10 million mark. In 1964, the Olympic games were
held in Tokyo and the super express bullet train (shinkansen) opened,
forming the basis for Tokyo’s current prosperity. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics
transformed Tokyo’s landscape radically by virtue of the Metropolitan highway (Shuto
Kōsoku) and other facilities like the Yoyogi National Gymnasium designed by
a world famous architect, K. Tange. Tokyo began to change from horizontal city
to vertical city since mid-1960s.
Figure ５. Tokyo Plan 1960,
Kenzo Tange.
From
late 1950s to early 1960s, Japanese architects raised hands to be the ‘directors’
as if they could lead the directions of Japanese cities. K. Tange proposed the
‘Tokyo Plan 1960’ following Kiyonori Kikutake’s (1928–) ‘City on the Sea’ (1958) and
‘Tower City’ (1959). The ‘Tokyo Plan 1960,’ which insisted on a linear
structure rather than a radial system, intended to change structure of Tokyo
radically, but was only pie in the sky. Many architects, including Noriaki Kurokawa
(1934-) (‘Rurban City’, ‘Spiral City’) and Fumihiko Maki (1928–) (‘Group
Form’), who had belonged to the Metabolism Group launched ideal projects for
the future city. Arata Isozaki (1931–) proposed a project called ‘The
City in the Air’.
Prominent
urban projects by star architects were proposed for a period of two or three
years in the beginning of the 1960s. Realization was of no concern and the
proposals lacked procedural and financial considerations. However, one image of
the future city was temporarily realized at the sites of ‘Expo ’70’. Another
rare case, K. Kikutake’s ‘City on the Sea’ (1958), was realized as ‘Aqua polis’
in 1975.
Figure ６. Aqua Polis, Okinawa, Kiyonori Kikutake 1975.
On the other hand, rapid
expansion of urbanized areas, shortage of housing, increased land-use prices
and confusion in land ownership
became apparent in metropolitan areas. Solving these problems became an extremely urgent policy issue. Planning in Tokyo
began to move in new direction from mid-1960s, because little was done to create
better living environments at that time, and citizens still suffered from severe
water shortages and air pollution. Minobe Ryokichi[28] (1904–84), a
professor who criticized urban policy from a socialist-communist perspective,
was elected as governor in 1967. He made an appeal to recover clean rivers and
blue skies and promised to work toward a more healthful Tokyo. The ‘Town
Planning Law’ was revised in 1968 long after the first version of 1919.
The Post-Modern City Tokyo at its Zenith
By the beginning of the 1970s, the excesses of high-level economic
growth became apparent through environmental problems such as air, river, and noise
pollution. At the same time, the Energy Crisis of 1973 brought the period of high-level
economic growth to a halt. Saving energy and resources became a real issue to avoid catastrophe.
Development shifted from outward urban expansion towards the
fuller development of already urbanized areas. Urban planning and housing paradigms shifted from large-scale development to
small-scale projects, from new construction to urban renewal, from high-rise
flats to low-middle rise town houses, and from quantity of dwelling units to
quality of life. This
situation Tokyo stood resembles that of the end of the 20th century.
Japan’s stable growth
period, however, was followed
by a ‘bubble economy’. In 1980’s, Tokyo enjoyed rapid economic growth again via its increasing internationalisation
and the emergence of information society. Tokyo became one of the world’s most vital
and attractive major cities, boasting advanced technology, information, culture
and fashion, as well as a high level of public safety.
Suzuki Shunichi
occupied the seat of governor after Minobe in 1979, serving four terms until 1995.
He called his vision for the city ‘My Town Tokyo’. His administration put
together a series of three comprehensive plans in 1982, 1986 and
1990. The biggest difference from the previous administration was their
emphasis on the Central
Business District and other major commercial districts, where
construction of large, showy projects was intended to advance Tokyo as an
international business centre and metropolis. New Tokyo City Hall[29] located
in Shinjuku designed by K. Tange (an intimate friend of the governor S. Suzuki from 1960s) is
the symbol of Tokyo’s zenith.
The urban issues Tokyo faced in the mid-1980s
were quite different from those it had faced in the past. The city had reached
its limits for horizontal expansion. The ‘Tokyo Problem’ and ‘Tokyo Reform’
became pressing issues for debate. Scholars and critics discussed the negative
effects of Tokyo’s political, economic and cultural dominance, as well as
possibilities for relocating the Japanese capital.
Tokyo’s status as one of
the world’s financial centres attracted an unprecedented influx of foreign
businessmen and workers in the 1980s. The resulting demand for centrally
located office space and 24-hour facilities sparked a speculative building rush
that dramatically transformed the cityscape. Western architects with
post-modern designs were invited to give Tokyo a fashionable facelift,
befitting its status as a global city.
Figure ７. Post
Modern Building Shinjuku 2ban Kan, designed by Minoru Takeyama 1978.
Further
urban development necessitated the search for new frontiers. The first frontier
identified was the unused public land in the city centre. Investors snapped up
downtown properties, while large real estate companies launched re-development
projects. Many of these destroyed the fabric of existing downtown communities.
The second frontier was the sky. Tokyo still had more space in the air than New
York. The project called ‘Manhattan Project’, revived after a long hiatus, started
to renew Marunouchi area (the former Mitsubishi London town), the Central Business
District around Tokyo Station. The third frontier was the under the ground, the
so-called geo front. A project to create an underground city with 500,000
inhabitants was seriously proposed. The fourth and final frontier was the Tokyo
waterfront, hitherto the home to dockyards and factories. Factories of heavy
industries moved out according to the change of industrial structure. The
tertiary industries evidently became the key industries of Tokyo in the 1980s.
New technologies, production systems, and building materials shaped
Tokyo’s urban transformation. Since 1960s sealed aluminium sash systems have been de rigueur, meaning that all dwelling units are
now air-conditioned. So-called intelligent office buildings came into fashion
in the 1980s. Domed, climate-controlled stadiums allow baseball games to be
played in the midst of storms. The daily lives of Tokyo’s citizens have become completely
divorced from nature. Most space in Tokyo is artificially controlled by
computer. Electronic conglomerates enjoying symbiotic
relations with the government are prominent players in this development
process, as are the large construction companies, which still wield considerable
political power. Tokyo
is a temporary metropolis that is constantly changing within this reiterative ‘scrap
and build’ process, the city is losing its historical memory.
Figure ８. Great Hanshin Earthquake.
Never ending Tokyo projects: Scrap and build
process
At the beginning of
the 1990’s the
bubble economy collapsed and Suzuki-era ended
in 1995. The waterfront
became a principal issue in the gubernatorial election of 1995. How to
redevelop the waterfront had become the major topic of early 1990s. Under the
title ‘Urban Frontier’, the ‘World City Exposition Tokyo ‘96’ directed
expansion towards Tokyo Bay. To hold exposition and equip infrastructures for
the development after is a well-worn device in Japan.
A
promise to electors to halt waterfront development led to the election of Yukio
Aoshima, better known as a TV comedian, as Governor. His abandonment of the
‘World City Exposition Tokyo ’96 - Urban Frontier’ symbolized the end of the
‘bubble economy’ and its infinite expansion. It is also very symbolic that the
Great Hanshin Earthquake[30] in the same year revealed the
weakness of Japan’s tradition of urban planning.
Standing at the
dawn of a new historical starting phase at the beginning of the 21st century, Tokyo still suffers from financial difficulties created
by the ‘bubble economy’. The paradigm of urban
planning is shifting again. Instead of large-scale projects here is greater
interest in creating communities and enriching the people’s immediate
environment, and a greater interest in creating an urban culture. ‘Sustainable City’ or ‘Compact City’
is becoming a new slogan, replacing the ‘Expanding City’ or ‘Mega-City’.
Looking back at this overview of the
history of urban planning in Tokyo, several general trends are evident.
Lack of originality: Concepts and
systems of urban planning have always been imported from western countries,
such as Baron Haussemann’s grand project of Paris, Nazi ideas on national land planning,
the Greater London plan, and the German B-plan. It is not a bad idea to learn
from other systems, but they do not necessarily work well in different context.
Ideas and methods need to be rooted in the realities of Japan.
Absence of subjectivity and the passiveness of people: In Japan, it is not clear who is planning and
designing the city. The local government is controlled by the central
government and cannot decide on any matter related to urban planning. In
addition, there is no system for
participation and advocacy.
Weakness of urban planning finance: There are no
special funds allocated for urban planning. They depend on the annual budgets. Policies may
easily be changed by the mayor, who may be replaced in the next election. Unstable
planning boards are also problematic. Officials in local government change from
one board to another frequently. Professionals in urban planning are needed on urban
planning boards.
Immaturity of public consciousness to limit the power of private urban planning: Japan is said to
be the freest country in
the world for the design of buildings. This is
because of the loose relation between the Building Code and the
Urban Planning Law (block regulations). The cityscape is chaotic, as a result of architects responsible for this situation
enjoy the freedom.
The ‘scrap and build’ urban process: For half a century after the war the ‘scrap and
build’ process has been repeated. Urban planning has neglected the urban
historical heritage. The resulting poor quality urban stock remains a
big problem.
The politically powerful
construction industry was one of the drivers of rapid post-war economic growth.
Relying heavily on the ‘scrap and build’ method, concrete and steel transformed
the Japanese landscape. In the late 1960s, construction accounted for over 20
percent of GDP. High growth gave way to a period
of stable but lower growth in the wake of the 1973 Energy Crisis; heavy industries lost ground to
light science and technology industries. The focus of
urban development shifted again from outward expansion to the full
development of already urbanized areas. Money generated by the speculative bubble of the
1980’s transformed Tokyo into a global city, wired to the dynamic movements of the world
capitalist economy.
The glory
days of Tokyo with the ‘bubble economy’ had gone and Tokyo suffered from
economic stagnation and post-bubble debt.
Nevertheless,
a curious phenomenon appeared. Along the Tokyo waterfront many new office
buildings and flats were built. The number of high-rise flats newly built in
2002 [31] is said
to be unprecedented. This construction was driven
by the speculative activities of real-estate agents and investors as before. The rumour
of ‘The 2003 Problem’[32] – companies
move to the waterfront, leaving older inner-city office buildings unoccupied-spread. The
oversupply was obvious
and predictable, but the individual realtors and developers
continue to pursue their own short-term interests, even as they know they will
later suffer.
The central government has tried to
influence the fluctuating annual number of dwelling units built by reforming
tax incentives. The current slogans of the central government are
‘Restructuring’ and ‘Urban Rebirth’. The central government has established a
special board called ‘Urban Rebirth’ and has opted to deregulate building codes
and urban planning laws to stimulate building activity. Local governments can
now rezone areas and make decisions on the restructuring of districts. Most local
governments, however, are suffering from financial constraints and lack of funds to
realize new projects. Though
policymakers believe promoting building activity through deregulation is the
only way to economic recovery, the idea is actually ill conceived.
What is actually happening, however, is
the hollowing out of the inner city. Ishihara Shintaro, governor of Tokyo Metropolitan
Municipality, has declared sixteen policy goals, the first of which is to ‘Create an
urban city that facilitates a balance of jobs and residences’. It consists
of two strategies: ‘Promotion of inner city residence’ and ‘Fundamental reform of the Metropolitan housing system’. The
former includes bringing workplaces and residential
areas together in the suburban Tama area. The results have been disappointing.
FIGURE HERE
Figure 17. Priority
Areas for Redevelopment in Central Tokyo 2004 (TMG).
Conclusion
Nobody controls a global city like
Tokyo; nobody knows who is behind the constant change. Something invisible,
which we might call the World Capitalist System, guides the
transformation of the Japanese capital.
Tokyo has its natural limits. The city cannot
grow indefinitely. What is first needed is decentralization and reorganization
of the land based on the ecological balance in the region. The municipal
government should strengthen the autonomy of urban community for risk
management. Water, food and other daily necessities are needed in the
neighbourhood units in case of disaster.
It is obvious that the
city needs powerful leadership and the participation of citizens to implement
new ideas. Unfortunately, while formal procedures for citizen involvement have
been proposed, they do not function effectively. People are
reluctant to participate when their private concerns are not
affected. Though blackouts
and drought already threaten the metropolitan area in summer, the current system of production and consumption of spaces, however, is
controlled by profit margins
rather than social or ecological responsibility. If the current trends remain
unchanged, Tokyo awaits catastrophe, and another reconstruction.
References
Barthes R. (1970) L'empire des signes, Paris,
: Skira.
Cybriwsky, R. (1998) Tokyo: The Shogun’s
City at the Twenty-First Century, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Fujimori, Terunobu (1982) Meiji
no Tokyo Keikaku (Urban planning of Tokyo in the Meiji era), Tokyo:
Iwanamishoten. [Japanese]
Funo, Shuji (1998) Toshi to
Gekijou (City and theatre), Tokyo: Shokokusya. [Japanese]
--
(2003) ‘The declining capital’, in IIAS Newsletter, 31 July, Leiden:
IIAS.
Goodman, G.K. (2000) Japan and the Dutch
1600-1853, Richmond: Curzon.
Ishida, Yorifusa (1987) Nihon Kindai Toshi
Keikaku no Hyakunen (The hundred years of modern urban planning in Japan),
Tokyo: Zichitai Kenkyu-sha. [Japanese]
Ishida, Yorifusa (1992) Mikan no Tokyo Keikaku
(The unaccomplished Tokyo projects), Tokyo: Tikumashobou. [Japanese]
Jinnai, Hidenobu (1995) Tokyo a Spatial
Anthropology: Translated by Kimiko Nishimura, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press.
Karan, P.P. and Stapleton, K. (ed. )
(1997) The Japanese City, Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.
Koshizawa, Akira (1991) Tokyo no
Toshikeikaku (Urban planning of Tokyo), Tokyo:Iwanamishoten. [Japanese]
Naito, Akira (1967) Edo to Edo Jou
(Edo and Edo castle), Tokyo: Kasimasyuppankai. (Japanese)
Sassen, S. (1991) The Global City:
New York, London, Tokyo, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Seidensticker, E. (1980) Low
City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake, Tokyo: Charles E.
Tuttle.
Seidensticker, E. (1990) Tokyo
Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Tamai, Tetsuo (1986) Edo: Ushinawareta
Toshikuukan wo yomu (Reading urban spaces lost), Tokyo: Heibonsha.
[Japanese]
Tokyo to (Tokyo Metropolitan Government) (1989)
Tokyo to no Toshi Keikaku Hyakunen (100 Years of urban planning in
Tokyo), Tokyo: Tokyo to. [Japanese]
Watanabe, Shunichi (1993) Toshikeikaku
no Tanjou (The birth of urban planning), TokyoKasiwashobou. [Japanese]
Notes
[1] Archaeological evidence indicates that human settlement in the Kanto Plain
dates back to prehistory. The origin of the city goes back to the foundation of
a small castle called Edo in 1457, which was built by a feudal lord named Dokan Ohta, and was part
of a small castle town before the end of sixteenth century.
[2] Many books and papers were written in Japanese in terms of the relationship
between Japan and the Netherlands (see Goodman 2000).
[3] The population of Tokyo
Metropolitan Government has grown to 12.17 million
(as of 1 October 2001), 9.5 percent of
Japan’s total population and the largest of the 47
prefectures. In contrast, Tokyo’s
land area
(2,187.0 square kilometers or 0.6 percent of the total area of Japan) is the third smallest of the
prefectures. The population density is 5,565 persons per square kilometer, by far the densest prefecture in Japan. The 23-ku areas are home to 8.21 million
persons, the Tama area to 3.94 million, and the Islands to 27,000. Tokyo has 5.518 million
households, and the average household comprises 2.2 persons.
[4] Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616) occupied the
town in 1590 and made it the central governmental city, establishing a military government, the Tokugawa Bakufu (Shogunate) at Edo, in 1603. The Edo era lasted for nearly 260 years
until imperial rule was restored (the Meiji Restoration) in 1868.
[5] According to reliable
records, Edo consisted of about 300 neighbourhood units in the Kanei Period
(1624–44), which increased up to 933 units in 1713, and 1678 units in 1745. The
estimated population was 350,000 in 1695 and 500,000 in 1721. It is the point
for later discussion that Edo was a special governmental city where half of the
inhabitants belonged to the Bushi
class (nobility) who formally resided in the country. So the total number of
inhabitants in Edo was over one million at the end of the eighteenth century, beyond
those of London and Paris. It is said that Edo (in terms of population) was the largest city – or a huge urban village – in
the world in early-nineteenth century.
[6] The Greater Tokyo
Metropolitan Area is made up of Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures of
Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba. Approximately 26.3 percent of
Japan’s total population lives in the Tokyo Metropolitan
Area.
Tokyo is a vast self-governing unit consisting of 23 ku (wards), 26 cities, 5 towns, and 8 villages, and is divided into two major areas – the 23 ku area and Tama
area. The
total areas of all 23 ku cover about 621 square
kilometers. The Tama Area is adjacent to the 23-ku areas. The daytime population, broken down by
area, shows 11.191 million in the 23-ku area, 3.348 million in the Tama
Area, and 32,000 persons in the islands.
[7] See Barthes (1970).
[8] Y. Ishida (1987) divides the development of modern
urban planning in Japan into following stages. (i) Introduction of European urban reform (1868–87), (ii) The Tokyo Urban Improvement Ordinance period (Shikukaisei Jorei)
(1880–1918), (iii) The period establishing the urban planning
system (1910–35), (iv) Wartime period (1931–45), (v) Reconstruction period (1945–54), (vi) Urban development (1955–68),
(vii) Establishing
new urban planning system (1968–85),
(viii) Anti-planning during the ‘bubble economy’ (1982–93). If I add the period after Y. Ishida, (ix) Community design after the ‘bubble economy’ (1995–)
[9] Born in Saga Han of Kyushu island. Politician. The Prime Mister (1898.6–10).
One of the leaders of Meiji Restoration. The founder of Waseda University.
[10] Born in Thoshu Han. Politician. The
Mister of Foreign Affairs (1885–88).
[11] Thomas James Waters is known as an
engineer who had worked in Shanghai before coming to Japan. The detail of his
career is not known.
[12] Josiah Condor from England is respected as the
father of the Japanese modern architects. He was invited to Japan at the
request of Ministry of Technology (kouburyo) in 1877 and taught the
first generation of students at Kobudaigakko (Institute of Technology) and
designed a considerable number of buildings.
[13] Herman Ende was 57 years old at that time. Willhelm Böckman was Ende’s colleague of Ende & Beckmann Atelier.
Richard Seel, Hermann Muthesius, Heinrich Mänz, Adolf Steghmüller, Oskara Emil
Leopold Tietze were hired as architects according to Böckman’s recommendation.
[14] London town, which is located immediately south
of the Imperial Palace and now called Marunouchi facing to Tokyo Central
Station, was a creation of a private, family-owned business called Mitsubishi
headed by Iwasaki.
[15] Born in Chōsyū han. Politician. The
Prime Mister (1889.12–91.4).
[16] In terms of the urban planning in the Meiji-era (1868–1911),
see T. Fujimori (1982), which is still the best material.
[17] The name of Mayor of Frankfurt am Main
[18] The word ‘Denen Toshi’ is used as the
Japanese word translated from ‘garden city’, but means ‘rural city’ or ‘country
town’ if the word is literally translated into English.
[19] 104,619 People, most of which had lived in the densely built up area, died
or were missing and 300,000
houses were destroyed as a result of this disaster.
[20] Born in Mito han. Politician. Colonial
Officer in Taiwan(1898. The first director of Mantetu (Manshu railroad
company) in Manchuria (1906). The Postmaster and (1908). Minister of The
Ministry of Interior (1916). The Minister of Foreign Affairs (1918). Mayor of
Tokyo (1920).
[21] An American scholar on public administration, finance and politics who had
started a similar institute in New York.
[22] The area is 55260 ha, which is 6 times of that
of Tokyo-shi. Dai Tokyo was consisted of 35 ku (ward), the
area of which is the same as the present 23-ku (wards) area.
[23] The number of dwelling units exceeded the
number of households in 1968. It took about a quater century to recover the
shortage of dwelling units.
[24] Civil engineer who graduated from Tokyo
Imperial University. Engineer of Ministry of Interior. Director of Construction
board of Tokyo shi. Professor of Waseda University.
[25] It soon became clear that the Capital
Region Development Plan was unrealistic in its underestimation of industrial
and population concentration pressures in the metropolis. In particular, the
idea of green belts was totally ineffective in the face of the sprawl into
suburbs during 1960s. As a result,
a re-evaluation of the plan became necessary. The Capital Region Development
Law was revised in 1965, and the second Capital Region Development Master Plan
was established in 1968.
[26] The cooperation was disorganized in 2004
according to restructuring of governmental organization.
[27] The New Residential Built-up Area
Development Law and the Law for Infrastructure Development of New Cities are
notable as measures that dealt realistically with metropolitan development.
[28] He was a popular two-term governor until 1979.
His ideas reoriented Tokyo city planning, but
almost brought it to bankruptcy.
[29] The former Tokyo City Hall demolished had been
located in Marunouchi Central District. The movement of city hall to the west,
the former sub-centre Shinjuku shows the movement of centre of gravity of the city.
[30] In the early morning on
January 17, 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake occurred. The building collapsed
killed over 6,000 people, flying objects (furniture) and the fires. About
300,000 people have lost their houses and were compelled to live in the
temporary shelters until the end of August 1995 when the emergency houses were
barely completed.
[31] The population
movement between Tokyo and other prefectures in 2000 shows that 444,000 persons
moved into Tokyo while 391,000 moved out, a total movement of 835,000 and a net
population increase of 37,000. Regarding total movement, the trend of
depopulation has prevailed since 1967, with the exception of 1985. In 1997,
there was a net population increase for the first time in 12 years, and 2000
again showed a net increase. Looking at the total movement
between Tokyo and the three adjacent prefectures (Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa
prefectures), 208,000 came into Tokyo with 205,000 moving out, representing a total
movement of 413,000 persons or 47.6 percent of the total, a net population
decline of 3,000. Concerning natural population movement, births numbered
101,000 and deaths numbered 84,000 for a net increase of 17,000 during 2000.
The degree of net increases has declined yearly since 1972, with the exception
of 1994 and 1996.
[32] See Funo (2003).
