say do you remember niihaomaa in china 04: Thames Town, an interpretation of britain in shanghai

in big cities in china, it seems it has been getting remarkably popular to plan cities that are imitating images of cities of the West. during my stay in shanghai, a chinese friend of mine took me to one of them, the Thames Town. it is one of newly developed areas of 1city9towns initiatives by shanghai's planning commission from 2001 to accommodate about 10000 people. it is named after the Thames river and is inspired by british architectures and city design.

when i got to the thames town, i was surprised to see its unique function as a town. usually cities or towns function as places to live and work, and that generate some sort of vibe and energy. this is even more applicable in the case of cities in china, that people play games, cook, meet, eat and do whatever they want. however, in the case of the thames town, there were really nobody. although all the built environment were nicely furnished, nothing lively was going on. due to its emptiness, some articles i found even described it as "ghost town."

instead, it was used as a massive studio for brides and grooms. there were tens of couples making photo shoots everywhere around the town.

when i saw them photo shooting, i came to recall that chinese couple-friends of mine told me that it was really popular to take photo shoots at this sort of studios to make pre-wedding photo albums. when i heard the story and saw their albums, i really couldnt grasp the concept at all, because i couldnt imagine there would be this massive studio-like-towns in many big cities in china, and because nothing like this is happening in japan. obviously china offered me much more than i expected. seeing this town somehow made me re-realize that cities and towns have much more potentials than just offering accommodation and jobs.

the other finding about this area that interested me was its interpretation. it looked much like a british city or at least european city. this is what many of japanese developers should learn, since many of european-inspired towns in japan cannot really offer a bit of their originals.

what has tsunami left in northern part of japan

its been about 9months since the quakes and tsunamis hit in northern part of japan, and i still remember clearly the grotesque way of tsunami's eroding cities. it looked like mercury flowing or amoebas propagating. cars and even houses were swept away as if they were duck toys sweeping in the rivers. cities are the biggest creature made by humankind, but they didnt have any other choices but to be invaded, and people had no chance but to runaway or to surrender. thousands of precious lives were deprived and millions of people got grief stricken.

regardless of the amount of loss, it seems people there have been struggling to overcome the trial. since the catastrophe, disaster affected people have been working for the recovery of their cities and lifestyles together with various stakes. a tremendous number of people have been thinking what they can do and many actually have been participating in volunteer work. the numbers of companies and organizations have supported for the recovery by what they are good at. and millions of millions of financial supports were donated from all over the world even from our favorite neighbor of the great nation of kim jong-il. due to the supports, cities with no tsunami erosion has regained their ordinary lifestyle.

(in the city of ishinomaki)

(in front of the iwaki station at night)

however, as the government has been busy dealing with political games, the recovery of seriously wounded areas has been progressed at a snails pace. although it is obvious that it cannot allow to rebuild the same cities on the same ground and it hasnt reached to any conclusion what to do for the area, it is really irritating to see nothing has done yet.

it appears that most of rubble have been cleaned up already, but nothing else is happening yet. most of the affected areas had been shrinking even before the catastrophe hit, and this fact has made the restoration more difficult. it is meaningless to make cities recover by bouncing back to where they were before the tsunami, as many of them have lost their charms and attractions already. it is also pointless to make them bring back to the state that they were still growing, as the industrial structure has changed dramatically in a past few decades. i have still no clue what these areas should become like other than making them become super resilient and creative and making the former residents become happy. i hope something will bring hope to those who are in the deepest despair there as soon as possible. in order to do that, i should become more creative and productive so that i might be able to contribute at least a bit.

yuubari, the city of past-the city of future

in the middle of september, i made a brief stop in yuubari during my first trip to hokkaido. it had been one of the most attractive destinations for me for a few years since i had started researching shrinking cities.

yuubari started developing as a coal mining town in the latter half of the 19th century. when coal was the main resource for energy production, yuubari experienced a rapid growth and became one of the biggest coal mining towns in japan. however as the energy production started shifting from coal to oil, the city faced its sunset. the coal mining industry started fading away from the 1970s and the last mine stopped operating in 1990. since the city was heavily dependent on mining industry, its fall let labors to leave the city. after the sunset of the mining industry, the city shifted its economy to tourism oriented. however neither its vision, strategies, or operation were appropriately set, and the lack of sense of crisis oppressed city's finance. the fall of mining industry and following failure of measure for economic recovery ended up with municipal bankruptcy in 2007. now its population is about 10,600. this is 90% smaller than its peak in 1960. its aging rate is as high as 44%...

these are what ive learned from wikipedia.

in order to get to know the city, i stopped by at the coal mine museum and mining lifestyle museum, and this choice was a diamond. i could really learn the rise and fall of the city. what impressed me the most was the underground exhibition room which i could actually walk the former driftway. there were plenty of tools and machines displayed that were actually used back in the coal mining era. the museums were super rich in local cultural heritages and were much much much more absorbing than my expectation and shabby reputation. i could grasp the situation at once.

after the brief stop at the museums i headed to a former thermal power plant which was under the demolition work, because there was an opening of an art event. the venue (lets leave aside the event for the moment) was really fantastic. in the field of art, it has been popular to utilize old factories and garages as these buildings provide big spaces for artists to express. this trend could be found anywhere around the world, such as china. whats interesting about this venue is the story after the event finished. in the most cases, people in the art industry are utilizing abandoned spaces to renovate to use as galleries or workshops. on the other hand, this former thermal power plant will keep being demolished. the event was possible thanks to the collaboration with the company to demolish the power plant. i wondered how could the city of yuubari pay for the demolition but i failed to ask about it.

in these two tourist attractions(?), there were people (not many, but at least, some). however, while i was driving from the museums to the power plant, i remember there were only three people on the street although i was driving on the main (or only?) road of the city. i passed by plenty of shops but most (or all? i dont remember) of them were closed. i couldnt even buy a souvenir from the museums as even the gift shop was closed.

it can be said that yuubari is the city of past. it was once flourished as the main mining town of japan and was a dynamo for the economic growth of the nation. although now it has lost its hegemony, no one can deny its importance and contribution of the past.

at the same time, it can also be said that yuubari is the city of future. on one level or another, there are plenty of cities in japan (and even japan itself) having similar problems as yuubari has been facing, such as sunset of key industries, lack of vision and strategies, population emigration, high aging rate, and so on. from this view point, yuubari is the most advanced city in this country. cities have to learn from the story of yuubari for their future.

i went to visit yuubari to see the future of this country. however, yuubari showed its future as well. it is its people. i had a noodle for a lunch there and surprisingly the restaurant's keepers told me that they were not from yuubari but to move to there in recent years. if this sort of outsiders' pioneering spirits and yuubari's unique story can collaborate, they will surely bear a fruit in the future i believe.

say do you remember niihaomaa in china 03: traffic jams

when im stuck in traffic jams, i always wonder who, where, when, how, and why the mess shows up so suddenly. sometimes the cause is rather obvious, like accidents, but most of the times its less visible.

in china, traffic jams are a part of life. people cannot live without them. in fact i was stuck in traffic jams couple of times and was even almost miss a flight. a chinese friend of mine told me the reason was because of the increasing number of car owners in the case of wuhan. another said its simply because of the number of cars and people.

when i was observing roads in china, i also found another reason, the different speed of adaptability to chinese changing built and technical environment. although individual economic level has been improving so rapidly and consequently the number of cars has been increasing, the infrastructure to control traffic (i.e. traffic management) is not catching up with them.

furthermore, the number of people are not catching up with chinese rapid speed of development. i came across to number of people who were trying to cross roads making the flow of traffic suffocated. there were plenty of people walking on roads rather than sidewalks. there were some motorbikes ran counter to the traffic flow.

i believe that the traffic management technique will be soon improved. in fact, the metro network in shanghai and beijing was reliable and wuhan is implementing metro system. yet it would be real hard for some to adapt the speed of development. the trend of urbanization cannot be reversed and more and more people are coming to cities from rural areas for better job opportunities and they might not know urban lifestyle. further, the number of car ownership will continue to increase in a next few decades i guess. from these perspectives, probably the life with lighter traffic jams will not be realised so soon.

say do you remember niihaomaa in china 02: where creativity heads (beijing and shanghai)

since Richard Florida wrote his famous book "the rise of the creative class," creativity has caught the spotlight in the field of urban studies. although there are plenty of oppositions against him, it is undeniable that the creative capital now plays the decisive role in urban discourse. cities all around the world compete to attract people from the creative class, and consequently some areas become the mecca for them. and these sort of areas are often used to brand the cities.

this sort of trend is especially remarkable in the field of modern art. as artists tend to demand cheep big spaces in urban areas, they started settling down in former factory or garage buildings. this movement is widely observed in the world. for instance chelsea in nyc and east end in london are the most famous examples of this sort. like other major cities around the world, both beijing and shanghai have successfully attracted artists to 798 (beijing) and M50 (shanghai).

what surprised me the most from these areas were their scale. they were HUGE!!! i could easily spend a day or maybe two there. the quality of exhibitions were pretty good and the built environment was splendid although both of them are former industrial areas;) the areas were filled with creativity.

(exhibition of Song Dong)

(built environment of M50)

many of asian growing cities tend to neglect what they have and just implement scrap-and-build strategies for development. yet we have to be smart enough to realize whats valuable for the cities.

say do you remember niihaomaa in china 01: peace outside the gated society

while i was walking around in wuhan, i immediately realized that the gap between rich and poor in china was much bigger than i had imagined. there was a clear class segregation visualized by physical boundaries. most of fancy neighborhoods equipped walls, gates and security check in order to probably keep safety or just segregate others. ive never seen a real "gated society" before, so it was quite a shock.

as i was segregated from any of fancy neighborhoods unfortunately, what i did was wondering around ordinary "unsecured?!" neighborhoods without walls or gates, and it was a great opportunity to encounter the reality of china. what surprised me was its rich street culture. famous Jan Gehl's three types of activities (necessary activities, optional activities, and social activities) were naturally found everywhere. people not only just walked to their destination, but also met friends, had a good conversation, went shopping on street markets, and played games together. it seemed to be chinese habit but they even hang their laundries on the street.

when i found these peaceful sights of non-fancy neighborhoods, i came to realize that such areas' quality of the physical environment was not poor at all, regardless of how they looked, and came to wonder what was the gate for. Gehl claimed in his famous "Life Between Buildings" (1980) that optional activities are "dependent on exterior physical conditions. when outdoor areas are of poor quality, only strictly necessary activities occur." yet obviously this good quality of life was found outside "safe and peaceful" gated societies that are supposed to produce good quality of physical environment. i somehow understood why Jane Jacobs kept living where she lived.

it might be true that Gehl's cultural background and that of china is totally different, yet this chinese street culture made me understand that it is not fancy neighborhoods that create a good physical environment, it is the people that create.

say do you remember niihaomaa in china 00: ibaraki airport

as i was luckily invited to my friends wedding in wuhan, i decided to spend my summer holidays in china. of course my initial plan was to attend the wedding, my motivation to discover something unknown and curiosity about the country drove me to fly from one city to another, ended up with 2days in wuhan, 4days in beijing, and 2days in shanghai.

usually it is really convenient to fly from tokyo to big cities in china like shanghai and beijing, as both haneda and narita airport have direct flight to major cities there. yet i took the alternative choice which was not really convenient at all this time; flying from the ibaraki airport. it is said to be the third airport in tokyo region but it has only 3 destinations; sapporo, kobe, and shanghai.

as it is not well connected with public transportation system, there is a direct bus connection available between tokyo station and the airport and it costs only 500yen if u fly. in order to use it, u have to make a reservation beforehand.... thats what i didnt know until a day before my departure, and it was too late to book a room for my ass to fit in anymore then. so what i had to do was to take a metro, a local train, a local train, an express train, and a bus with my huge backpack.... and it costed me like 4000yen....

one of the reasons that i decided to fly from the ibaraki airport was that i could take a cheap flight there, but thanks to the transportation fee to get there, this reason became a phantom.

apparently the ibaraki airport and host municipalities are investing a lot to build better city networks intranationally and internationally. if they really want to, what they have to do is clearer than crystal; prepare an easier and cheaper access to the airport with public transportation system.