Topic 8A: Urban Japan

Perry Athanasopoulos

Housing and Planning in Post-war Urban Japan 

Dealing with the ramifications of World War II, Japan was confronted with an incredibly difficult task of rebuilding the country on multiple levels including economically, politically and most importantly, physically. The task of physically reconstructing the war torn cities of the nation from rubble was twofold, with the pressing need for housing its surviving residents and the essential, yet somewhat less pressing, need of local infrastructure. Hiroshima and Tokyo both present interesting cases on how a large scale disaster and the destruction it causes can change the priorities in cities in regards to planning, in particular, the priorities of its citizens and their well-being.

Since even before the war ravaged Tokyo, “the housing needs of the Japanese urban population during the period of industrialisation and urban growth have never been adequately met” (Dore, 1958, p. 40). This issue came to the forefront of the Government and planners thoughts in the 1930’s, after the rapid growth of the urban population highlighted the need for a larger quantity of housing and an overall increase in the quality of accommodation. This led to the first intervention of  the government in relation to housing with the introduction of schemes and provisions, in order to boost the rate of production, which unfortunately had little effect in providing the grand scale construction program which was required (Dore, 1958).

The housing problems that Tokyo faced were further exacerbated during the war in 1944-45, with “more than 2 million” houses destroyed by bombing and a further 500,000 destroyed by authorities to create crucial fire-breaks, culminating in the loss of approximately a sixth of the nation’s houses (Dore, 1958). Supplies to reconstruct these lost houses were economically unavailable, therefore residents were forced to fend for themselves creating their own informal housing. Despite the lack of funding, the houses were eventually built by 1952, with over 50% of the then-current dwellings built since the end of the war 7 years earlier (Dore, 1958). However, the effects of the war certainly showed, with estimates suggesting that only 76% of housing met the Japanese Governments minimum requirements (Dore, 1958). The struggles of restoring the lost houses from the war, with the continuing need to provide new dwellings for the swelling urban population accentuates the problem of the housing shortages in Tokyo. Dore (1958) states that 53% of households in Shitayama-cho area are overcrowded, however also claims that the Japanese population considered crowded sleeping to be “more pleasant than isolation in separate rooms” and hence was not seen as a primary priority by authorities (Dore, 1958, p. 49).

Pre-war Hiroshima had a population of about 400,000 inhabitants by 1939, and was largely characterised as a military, academic and industrial city (Norioki, 2003). Urban Planning had already been contrived in Hiroshima following the City Planning Act 1919 with particular regard to roads, forming a road network in grid pattern of east-west and north-south streets (Norioki, 2003). This all changed on the fateful morning of August 1945 when a “major part of the city was reduced to ashes”, becoming one of the 200 cities affected by American bombs (Norioki, 2003, p. 87). Norioki (2003) claims that within two kilometres of the hypocentre of the blast, all buildings apart from a few reinforced concrete buildings were destroyed completely and ultimately 90% of the city area was affected by the blast in one way or another.

Hiroshima’s damage was not only contained to a small radius around the hypocentre, with the effects of the blast destroying houses fairly distant from the centre. Approximately 60,000 of the 76,000 houses were damaged or destroyed by the atomic bomb resulting in a housing and planning crisis (Norioki, 2003).

Plans and proposals to reconstruct the city came from both planning officials and members of the general public, however due to fiscal constraints in the war-ravaged country only those backed by official planners and the aforementioned Planning Act of 1919 materialised (Norioki, 2003). Furthermore, it was decided that Hiroshima would install three big parks, four green areas, a large new cemetery (for the bombing casualties) and 32 smaller parks into the open spaces created by the destruction of houses (Norioki, 2003). Whilst it was incredibly progressive of planners to incorporate goals for parks and green areas, it was “difficult to keep this land free at times when large numbers of people were looking for space to erect new houses” (Norioki, 2003, p. 94).

Much like what was occurring in Tokyo at the same time, despite their world being dramatically altered “the citizens began reconstruction as quickly as possible” by building small informal houses
 where their old house may have been or in new cleared locations, without legal authorisation (Norioki, 2003, p. 90). The plans for big parks ultimately had a large impact on households that reconstructed in the allotted area, with the government proceeding to compensate owners by mandating a land readjustment scheme before acquiring the land, however the complete removal of houses did not eventuate until 1959 (Norioki, 2003).

Ultimately, the Second World War and the destruction it caused placed a great strain on the natural order of life in Japan, leaving its cities in chaos and ruins. All planning problems that were perceived before the outbreak of war were greatly exacerbated by the end of fighting in 1945, with the large scale destruction of infrastructure and housing impacting quality of life for residents. Moreover, Japan was forced to rebuild its cities as well as cope with the long lingering effects of the war simultaneously, providing headaches for governments and planners particularly with prioritising and the allocations of already scarce funds.

References

Dore, R. P. (1958). Houses and Apartment Blocks. In City Life in Japan: A Study of a Tokyo Ward (pp. 40-52). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Norioki, I. (2003). Reconstructing Hiroshima and Preserving the Reconstructed City. In C. Hein, J. M. Diefendorf, & Y. Ishida (Eds.), Rebuilding Urban Japan After 1945 (pp. 87-107). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

terorvictims.com (2012) Hiroshima Before and After the atomic bomb blast. Retrieved on 1/5/2015 from http://www.teror-victims.com/uploaded_files/151421/1/1a.jpg

Encyclopedia of Safety (2010) Houses are being reconstructed in Hiroshima amongst the rubble of destroyed houses. Retrieved on 1/5/2015 from http://survincity.com/2010/07/2nd-world-war-the-period-after-the-war/