Revitalizing Tokyo: Bringing Urban Renewal Back to the City Center

ABSTRACT

Tokyo's urban structure, while two-dimensionally congested, is three dimensionally sparse. Though the housing plot ratio of the city is very high, its vertical development is not very advanced as compared to that of other metropolises around the world. Its space, in other words, is not being effectively used. From this perspective, the recent invigoration of urban redevelopment projects, which include the construction of high-rise apartments and large-scale office buildings, will work to correct the city's structural distortion. It will, in addition, increase the number of residents in the heart of the city and thereby bring work and living locations closer together.

In order to support private initiatives toward urban redevelopment, it will be necessary to review Tokyo's procrustean regulations for floor-area ratios. It is open to question whether the standards that these regulations use are still appropriate and if, because of their blanket application, the regulations are not unsuitable to the actual conditions of certain regions. Also essential to promoting private initiatives will be the involvement of NPO's and a more expedient decision-making process on the part of the administration for city planning matters.

There are, however, many problems pertaining to Tokyo's urban redevelopment that private led initiatives cannot solve. Two examples are the wooden housing areas and the low utilization areas. These problems will require the unified efforts of the government and the private sector.

The problem of wooden housing areas will require sober and consistent efforts, promoting redevelopment projects in those districts and recommending "setbacks" (pushing the houses back to allow wider roads) at the time of rebuilding. As for the low utilization areas that are small and scattered about, it is hard to find any other effective measure than for the local governments to buy them up. One way for the government to encourage redevelopment in these areas would be to solicit concrete proposals from the private sector and to give financial support to the developer with the most favorable proposal for the region.

For the low utilization areas that contain the vacated plots of large-scale factories, one development scheme would be to eliminate all the development restrictions in those areas by designating them "special development districts." Once the red tape has been cleared away, the government could then solicit development plans from private developers and entrust the entire rebuilding project to the developer that proposes the most favorable plan.