2 research outputs found

    Machi: Neighborhood and Small Town鈥擳he Foundation for Urban Transformation in Japan

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    The term machi, signifying both neighborhood and small town, is a key element for understanding Japanese urban form and city planning. After tracing the origins of the term, this article explores the historic and contemporary significance of the concept and its particular spatial and socioeconomic forms. The article then argues that the concept of machi influenced the ways in which Japanese planners picked up foreign concepts through the nineteenth and particularly the twentieth century, absorbing some ideas and rejecting others. Building on their perception of the city as composed of urban units that allowed for planning in patchwork patterns, leading Japanese planners carefully selected models鈥攊ndependently of international appreciation鈥攎aking, for example, the book The New Town by the German planner Gottfried Feder a standard reference. The article concludes by arguing that foreign observers must understand the concept of machi to comprehend contemporary Japanese neighborhoods, city life, and urban forms
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