In this reflection, you’ll hear from a delegate on lessons learned from the Tokyo Study Trip.
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In Chiba, a city 25 miles east of central Tokyo and built in the 1980s on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay, we sat down with Kei Minohara, a prominent urban planner who served as the Chair of the Design Board of the Makuhari Baytown development. Mr. Minohara recounted how he chose to live in the district he spent so much time planning and redeveloping. He shared that his measure of success wasn’t the modern or thoughtful design, the wide boulevard-like streets, or the one-of-a-kind Makuhari International School. Rather, success lies in the newly designed district’s creation of opportunities for community and social cohesion. He spoke of the lively festivals, open street markets, and community events that brought people together.
Beyond Makuhari, I observed a similar shared, social purpose among planners and designers in Tokyo to ensure newly redeveloped districts and buildings create community. Perhaps this shared, social purpose has become all the more critical in the collective consciousness of Japan as the country faces a rapidly aging population and works to combat loneliness.
In the example of the Hanamigawa danchi in Chiba, the government partnered with the homeware goods company, Muji, to refurbish older units within these large-scale apartment blocks experiencing higher vacancy rates and an aging population. Though the primary goal was to modernize and bring in more residents to vacant units, they also focused on renovating common spaces, plazas, and retail blocks within the danchi to help create opportunities for intergenerational residents to socialize with one another and reduce isolation.
Japan’s housing policies are nationally driven and go beyond solving supply and demand. The national policy, supported at the prefecture and local governments, aims to provide housing as a public good. This reinforced for me how critical it is for New York City to tackle the housing crisis with a multipronged approach. As the aging population grows and building stock continues to age in New York City, I hope that we continue to incorporate design and planning solutions to ensure older New Yorkers continue to feel connected to their neighbors and neighborhoods and that we find creative partnerships to renovate our older housing stock, especially those serving our most vulnerable populations.