A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Generic neighborhood features of an egalitarian city: The postwar “Tokyo Model”
Abstract This paper develops a “Tokyo model” of urban development during the 1955–1975 postwar period. To this end, data on physical attributes and socio-economic characteristics of neighborhoods is analyzed for administrative subunits of the Tokyo prefecture. It is found that a set of generic neighborhood features, distributed evenly across the special ward area, help explain why Tokyo's postwar development proceeded in an egalitarian fashion. The insights inform the debate on neighborhoods in today's Tokyo, and whether there were elements worth adapting or replicating elsewhere, particularly in developing megacities.
Highlights This paper zooms in on one of the most remarkable case studies of urban growth, i.e. that of Tokyo during the postwar period 1955-1975. Despite the city’s rapid transformation at the heart of the Japanese economic miracle, it became more egalitarian instead of stratifying spatially. Charting this process for Tokyo’s 23 central wards, this paper analyzes inequalities between these administrative subunits over a 20-year period focusing on living space per capita, urban form and business densities. Besides a homogenization in living standards, the 23-ward area under review here also became more equal in terms of its urban form, while neighborhoods retained their traditional character with a high density of bathhouses, small retailers and construction establishments. Tokyo’s non-Western urbanism and recent experience of rapid megacity growth make it more relevant to contemporary developing cities and help historicize the discourse of rapidly growing, large cities.
Generic neighborhood features of an egalitarian city: The postwar “Tokyo Model”
Abstract This paper develops a “Tokyo model” of urban development during the 1955–1975 postwar period. To this end, data on physical attributes and socio-economic characteristics of neighborhoods is analyzed for administrative subunits of the Tokyo prefecture. It is found that a set of generic neighborhood features, distributed evenly across the special ward area, help explain why Tokyo's postwar development proceeded in an egalitarian fashion. The insights inform the debate on neighborhoods in today's Tokyo, and whether there were elements worth adapting or replicating elsewhere, particularly in developing megacities.
Highlights This paper zooms in on one of the most remarkable case studies of urban growth, i.e. that of Tokyo during the postwar period 1955-1975. Despite the city’s rapid transformation at the heart of the Japanese economic miracle, it became more egalitarian instead of stratifying spatially. Charting this process for Tokyo’s 23 central wards, this paper analyzes inequalities between these administrative subunits over a 20-year period focusing on living space per capita, urban form and business densities. Besides a homogenization in living standards, the 23-ward area under review here also became more equal in terms of its urban form, while neighborhoods retained their traditional character with a high density of bathhouses, small retailers and construction establishments. Tokyo’s non-Western urbanism and recent experience of rapid megacity growth make it more relevant to contemporary developing cities and help historicize the discourse of rapidly growing, large cities.
Generic neighborhood features of an egalitarian city: The postwar “Tokyo Model”
Bansal, Benjamin (author)
Cities ; 131
2022-08-05
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Tokyo , Japan , Urban space , Urban form , Inequality
The Egalitarian city: The restructuring of Amsterdam
| Taylor & Francis Verlag | 1997
The Egalitarian City: The Restructuring of Amsterdam
| British Library Online Contents | 1997
Small city makes postwar plans
| Engineering Index Backfile | 1944
Central heating and postwar city plans
| Engineering Index Backfile | 1945
| UB Braunschweig | 1997