Resilient Tokyo: Disaster and Transformation in the Japanese City

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carola Hein
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Urban Change ◽  
Tidal Waves ◽  
Meiji Restoration ◽  
Wood Construction ◽  
Japanese City ◽  
Political Economic

Natural disasters have destroyed, in whole or in part, Japan’s cities on numerous occasions. Human action, whether internal warfare or the air raids of the Second World War, has been the cause of further devastation. But regardless of the origin of the destructive force, Japan has always rebuilt its cities, and usually with astonishing speed. This chapter argues that while urban disasters can bring about an opportunity for changes in the built environment, they do not appear to induce innovation per se. Many times, the Japanese rebuilt their cities much the same as they were before, innovating only slightly on building codes or urban form. At times of ongoing political, economic, and social transformation, however, the leadership sponsored urban change in the wake of destruction. These interventions, instead of responding to post-disaster conditions, were often pared-down versions of predisaster concepts, constrained by limited finances, the lack of appropriate planning tools, the strictures of land ownership, and the needs and desires of private initiatives that called for rapid reconstruction and the preservation of traditional urban form. Societal transformation by itself has promoted the large-scale demolition and urban transformation of Japanese cities far beyond the areas touched by natural or human-made disasters. Rapid industrialization, urbanization, modernization, andWesternization, following the Meiji restoration of 1868 and the establishment of modern Japan, in particular buffeted Japanese cities on a grand scale. The repeated destruction of the capital, Tokyo (or Edo, as the city was called until 1868), and its rapid reconstruction provide an especially compelling means to examine disaster and rebuilding in Japanese cities. A focus on Tokyo permits comparison of reconstruction following both sudden, natural destruction and human-inflicted attack, as well as analysis of urban change in the absence of disaster. Earthquakes rattle Japan regularly; typhoons are frequent visitors; and tidal waves as well as tsunami have wiped out many settlements along the coasts. Rivers are highly susceptible to flooding, and inundation along major rivers in Edo resulted in the affluent abandoning the lowlands to the poor and lower classes and building their villas on the highlands. Traditional Japanese architecture has responded to such threats in a variety of ways. Wood construction, for example, provides flexibility in the event of tremors, and heavy roofing helps to stabilize houses buffeted by typhoon-strength winds.

Living on Past Glories and Future Dreams The Effects of Depopulation on Early Modern Urban Development in the Former Castle Town of Kanazawa

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Phillipps
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central City ◽  
Japan Sea ◽  
Meiji Restoration ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time

AbstractDepopulation of urban areas is a serious issue in twenty-first century Japan, as shown by the recent large-scale amalgamation of municipalities and programmes to combat declining central city areas. However, this is not the first time depopulation has had a significant effect on urban development: the decline in castle towns after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 had profound effects on both urban form and development concepts. Kanazawa, once one of the largest cities in Japan, suffered from an initial and long-lasting drop and then a more insidious decline as its Japan Sea coast location cut it off from the bulk of industrial and trade development. This article uses a two-fold approach to examine depopulation: first, an examination of the physical effects of depopulation based on statistical analysis of pre-war land registers shows the patterns of decline and regrowth throughout the modern period. Second, the impact of depopulation on the city's image of itself is examined through period documents such as council records and local newspapers. The need to regain status through population rank became an overarching goal of the urban leaders, and formed the basis of Kanazawa's reactions to the modern era and eventually towards imperialism.

Social inequality in the evolution of human societies

2019 ◽  
pp. 98-120
Author(s):  
Georgi Derluguian
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Tangible Assets ◽  
Transition To Agriculture ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
High Level ◽  
Political Economic

The author develops ideas about the origin of social inequality during the evolution of human societies and reflects on the possibilities of its overcoming. What makes human beings different from other primates is a high level of egalitarianism and altruism, which contributed to more successful adaptability of human collectives at early stages of the development of society. The transition to agriculture, coupled with substantially increasing population density, was marked by the emergence and institutionalisation of social inequality based on the inequality of tangible assets and symbolic wealth. Then, new institutions of warfare came into existence, and they were aimed at conquering and enslaving the neighbours engaged in productive labour. While exercising control over nature, people also established and strengthened their power over other people. Chiefdom as a new type of polity came into being. Elementary forms of power (political, economic and ideological) served as a basis for the formation of early states. The societies in those states were characterised by social inequality and cruelties, including slavery, mass violence and numerous victims. Nowadays, the old elementary forms of power that are inherent in personalistic chiefdom are still functioning along with modern institutions of public and private bureaucracy. This constitutes the key contradiction of our time, which is the juxtaposition of individual despotic power and public infrastructural one. However, society is evolving towards an ever more efficient combination of social initiatives with the sustainability and viability of large-scale organisations.

NECESSITY, FEASIBILITY, AND CHOICE OF WAY OF INTEGRATING THE GREATER EURASIAN PARTNERSHIP AND THE INITIATIVE CALLED “ONE BELT, ONE PATH”

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-116
Author(s):  
Huirong Zhao ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Russian Federation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Eurasian Continent ◽  
Large Scale Integration ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Scale Integration ◽  
Political Economic

The article covers the combination of two large-scale integration projects, the Great Eurasian Partnership (Russian Federation) and the initiative called One Belt, One Path (People’s Republic of China). Following the joint statement of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation dated 5 June 2019, which sets out the fundamental provisions of a comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction between the two countries, the author states that the cooperation between Russia and China is conditioned by a number of the political, economic, cultural, and geographical factors; that it can bring tangible benefits not only to Moscow and Beijing, but to almost the entire Eurasian continent, as well as stabilise the global situation. However, in the process of their interaction Russia and China constantly encounter various obstacles, which manifest themselves at the bilateral, regional, and global levels and significantly slow down the implementation of joint projects, which are mutually beneficial. In this work, the author proves that the cumulative intensifying effect on the cooperation between Russia and China can be provided by the strategy of “pairing” integration projects of Russia and China, which the parties have been implementing quite consistently and steadily since 2014.

Post-Communism's First Decade: A Primer for Non-Specialists

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara J. Falk
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
Social Experimentation ◽  
Political Economic

This article examines the lessons "learned" and the legacies inherent in the downfall of authoritarian communism in central and eastern Europe in view of post-communism's first decade. It is argued that the events of 1989-1991 were revolutionary in dramatically and unexpectedly establishing new regimes and ushering in simultaneous and multilateral (political, economic, social, national) change. Furthermore, 1989-1991 represents a rejection of "grand narrative" large-scale social experimentation in political arrangements in favour of hybridism and incrementalism. Ten key maxims are introduced as a means of analyzing this historical rupture and understanding the variety of experiences across the region.

Tsunamis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Adam
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Ocean Waves ◽  
The Other ◽  
Tsunami Generation ◽  
Sea Waves ◽  
Tsunami Propagation ◽  
Tidal Waves ◽  
Special Cases

This chapter describes a mathematical model of tsunami propagation (transient waves). A tsunami is a series of ocean waves triggered by large-scale disturbances of the ocean, including earthquakes, as well as landslides, volcanic eruptions, and meteorites. Tsunamis have very long wavelengths (typically hundreds of kilometers). They have also been called “tidal waves” or “seismic sea waves,” but both terms are misleading. The chapter first considers the boundary-value problem before modeling two special cases of tsunami generation, one due to an initial displacement on the free surface and the other due to tilting of the seafloor. It also discusses surface waves on deep water and how fast the wave energy propagates and concludes with an analysis of leading waves due to a transient disturbance.

Kin-Mode Contradictions, Crises, and Transformations in the Archaic Lower Mississippi Valley

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley E. Ensor
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
System P ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Demographic Growth

A Marxist perspective considers contradictions within modes of production that ultimately lead to crises and transformations to other modes, providing a framework for interpreting political economic change in human societies. This chapter describes how kinship and marriage structure social relations of production and contradictions in kin-modes that may lead to social transformations. An archaeological framework for making inferences on kinship and marriage is applied to the Archaic periods of the Lower Mississippi Valley to explain the enigmatic development of early mound-building foraging societies and their dissolution in the Tchefuncte period. The Archaic periods reflect competitive “Crow/Omaha” kinship and marriage—explaining mound building and widespread craft production and exchange—that experienced the disproportionate demographic growth among descent groups hypothesized to cause crises in social reproduction. This was followed by a social transformation in the Tchefuncte period to bilateral descent networks with a less competitive “complex” marriage system.

Entangled Systems at the Energy-Water-Food Nexus

2017 ◽  
pp. 144-165
Author(s):  
Joseph Nyangon ◽  
Nabeel Alabbas ◽  
Lawrence Agbemabiese
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Food Resource ◽  
Institutional Processes ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Energy Economy ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Resource Systems

This chapter assesses energy, water, and food resource systems based on their inter- and intra-sectoral imperatives of large scale development investments at the institutional level (including private and public activities) and how to achieve security of resource supplies. It identifies key interrelated processes, practices, and factors that underpin integrated resource management (IRM) and their attendant benefits. Applying the E4 framework concerned with energy, economy, environment, and equity to identify the main threats to these systems, the chapter evaluates their institutional, political, economic, cultural and behavioral components, and characterizes the forces that drive each of them at different governance scales. The chapter is guided by political economy, economic, and sociological theories that suggest that institutional structures affect economic factors and processes (i.e. production, distribution, and consumption processes). A case study of energy, water, and food (EWF) conflicting sectoral imperatives in Delaware is discussed in detail to better understand how these policy and institutional processes occur, which forms they take, and in which ways they define the quality and quantity of EWF resource systems in the State. In order to verify these parameters, the analysis considered the advantages of a sectorally balanced, E4 framework, in particular to evaluate the valency and magnitude of cross-sectoral connections, balance competing needs, and identify policy options that address various trade-offs.

Learning from Failure

2011 ◽  
pp. 419-430
Author(s):  
Fadi Salem ◽  
Yasar Jarrar
Keyword(s):  
Business Strategy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Electronic Government ◽  
Public Administrators ◽  
The Public ◽  
Awareness Campaigns ◽  
Arab States ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
Political Economic

Large-scale electronic government projects had mixed results over the past decade. A considerably large percentage of such projects effectively failed. The over-ambitious promise of e-governance positively transforming public sectors in developing nations didn’t fully materialize. The actual causes of e-government failures are still to be explored in more detail to improve the understanding of the phenomenon by practitioners and scholars alike. This chapter explores the causes of e-government failures within the context of Arab states and discusses prevailing views of such failures in earlier literature. Based on a survey of senior e-government practitioners in nine Arab countries, our findings indicate that the underlying roots of failure in e-government projects in Arab countries (which we classify in nine main categories) are entwined with multifaceted social, cultural, organizational, political, economic and technological factors. We argue that, despite their many similarities, e-government initiatives in the Arab states would be better equipped for avoiding failure when a local ‘fit’ is established between leadership commitment, sustainable cross-government vision, appropriate planning, rational business strategy, suitable regulatory framework, practical awareness campaigns and rigorous capacity building for the public administrators and society at large. Based on our findings, we argue that replicable “best practices” in a complex and developing field of e-government rarely exist. We conclude with a proposal to nurture a culture more tolerant to risk-taking and failure in the relatively new area of e-government in the Arab states. Until a local maturity level is reached, such culture should be accompanied with home-grown e-government risk management approaches as well as effective mechanisms of knowledge management to enable extracting relevant local lessons from failed projects and partial successes.

Bribery and Corruption

2015 ◽  
pp. 196-210
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Oil Contracts ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Level ◽  
Personal Welfare ◽  
Political Economic

Bribes are mainly directed at government officials, although they could be directed at the employees and managers of business firms. However, bribery appears to be a self-defined crime. Bribery of small public sector employees is a white-collar crime. However, bribery also exists in high-level decision-making processes, whether political, economic, or corporate situations. These are large-scale bribes, consisting of millions and/or billions of dollars, paid out to executives and public officials in return for construction contracts, oil contracts, telecommunication contracts, etc. Although punishments exist and are implemented, it is up to the individual alone to make the final decision and choose between personal moral value system and personal welfare in opposition to serving the public welfare. This chapter explores bribery.

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