Machi: Neighborhood and Small Town—The Foundation for Urban Transformation in Japan

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—independently of international appreciation—making, 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

Cities in transcontinental context: A comparison of mega urban projects in Shanghai and Belgrade

This study of urban developments in Belgrade and Shanghai is set in the context of comparative urban research. It presents two ostensibly contrasting cities and briefly examines urban development patterns in China and Serbia before focusing more specifically on mega urban projects in the two cities - Pudong and Hongqiao in Shanghai contrasted with New Belgrade. While the historical genesis of the Chinese and Serbian projects differs markedly, together they provide complementary examples of contemporary entrepreneurial urban development in divergent settings. China and Serbia share a heritage of state ownership of urban land, and this characteristic is still very much a feature underpinning development in Shanghai and other Chinese cities, as well as in New Belgrade. In both territories, state ownership of land has contributed to a form of urban development which - it is argued in this paper - can best be seen as state-based but market-led. The comparative study that this work initiates will, it is hoped, contribute to an understanding of contextual change in the two worlds regions of East Europe and East Asia

The Sumida : changing perceptions of a river

Over the last century the image of the Sumida has already been modified twice, while a third change is currently taking place. Prior to the Meiji era the river acted not only as a communication axis and red light district, but also as a recreational area and sacred zone. With the opening up of Japan, it developed as one of Tokyo's industrial districts, also becoming a cosmopolitan but marginalised area. With rapid growth this marginalisation was accentuated, with the "razor blade embankment" and motorways cutting off the river and its banks from the city. The present phase of change, which began in 1980, is marked by the wish to rediscover certain riverscape values : a redeveloped waterfront, the razor blade embankment demolished and new bridges built. Even the temples of the river banks are again pilgrims.En un siècle, l'image de la Sumida a changé deux fois et un troisième changement est en cours. Avant l'ère Meiji, la rivière était à la fois un axe de circulation, un lieu permissif, un espace de loisir et, finalement, un espace sacré. Avec l'ouverture du Japon, elle est devenue l'un des lieux de concentration industrielle de Tokyo, mais également un secteur cosmopolite et marginalisé. Avec la haute croissance, la marginalisation s'accentuera, digues-rasoirs et autoroutes coupant la rivière et ses rives de l'agglomération. La phase de changement actuelle, qui s'amorce en 1980, est marquée par le souci de retrouver certaines valeurs paysagères : berges aménagées, digues-rasoirs supprimées et nouveaux ponts. Les temples sur les rives redeviennent même des lieux de pèlerinage.Waley Paul. The Sumida : changing perceptions of a river. In: Revue de géographie de Lyon, vol. 65, n°4, 1990. Villes et fleuves au Japon et en France. pp. 261-275

Western Australia : Premier leads his party in questioning the High Court and Federal Government's position on Aboriginal land rights

Transcript. Provided by MICAH, Canberra

Finding space for flowing water in Japan’s densely populated landscapes

With its rapidly flowing rivers and plentiful summer rainfall, 20th-century Japan has a history of frequent flooding. The effects on its densely populated flood plains have often been devastating. Japan also has one of the world’s landscapes most heavily covered in concrete. In recent decades, however, the Japanese state has turned hesitantly to new techniques of releasing of water into the sea buttressed by a concern for ecological well-being. Its ‘nature-oriented’ river landscaping programme is an attempt to find a more sustainable balance between flowing water and the built terrain, allowing water to make space for itself. Our paper sets this programme in its historical context, relating it back to the premodern period and juxtaposing it to prevalent modernist 20th-century practice. Throughout this paper, we focus on the interweaving of discourse and practice, drawing attention to the ‘idiom’ of river landscaping as well as to the role of the state in defining this idiom. We argue that a sort of reconciliation is occurring between the contrasting discourses and practices of ‘hard’ and ‘green’ engineers.

History of Tokyo 1867-1989 From EDO to SHOWA: The Emergence of the World's Greatest City

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