Urban sprawl and urban planning in Japan
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Abstract
Much new development in japan takes the form of urban sprawl or scatteration, that is to say, sporadic building of farm plots within commuting distance of towns. The first half of the paper summarises the general arguments for preventative measures, showing how these are reflected in Japan's legal and policy framework of land management. The second part of the paper reviews the actual ineffectiveness of planning, explaining it in the light of institutional and land market factors. In conclusion, the Japanese experience is seen to suggest at least a partial re-evaluation of the received arguments against urban sprawl. One feature of contemporary Japan which is bound to strike any western visitor with an interest in planning issues is the extent and intensity of urban sprawl, despite a planning system that is formally supposed to prevent it. The principal purpose of this paper is to explain the rather weak impact of planning policies on urban growth. I start by going back to first principles of town planning theory for a reminder of why sprawl is almost universally considered undesirable and an appropriate object of preventive action by government. At the end of the paper I return to these universal arguments to see what fresh light may be shed on them by the Japanese case. Urban sprawl In any comparative consideration of land use policies, a paramount objective, which more than any other explains the shift from local measures of building regulation to more interventionist notions of land management, is the prevention of scattered urban development. In the absence of land use control, the built-up area of any modern city tends to be surrounded by a transitional zone which is neither fully urban nor fully rural but instead displays a mixture of uses and building types interspersed with agricultural and vacant land. This zone, which may be very wide indeed, wider than the radius of the densely built-up urban area, 141