Toshi no Henyo to Jichi no Tenbo (Perspectives on Urban Transformation and Autonomy)

This book is a collection of papers to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Goto-Yasuda Memorial of the Tokyo Institute for Municipal Research, which was established in 1922 as the Tokyo Municipal Research Institute based on the ideas of Shinpei Goto with a donation from Zenjiro Yasuda. Since then, it has been involved in researching cities and autonomy and disseminated results, conducted joint research, commissioned research, published the journal Toshi Mondai (Municipal Problems), and sponsored the Urban Issues Conference. The preface of this book states that it was compiled to revisit the issues that the research institute has worked on for several years, both (1) from the perspective of the city itself that should be governed, and (2) from the perspective of the system responsible for governing the city, especially the system of autonomy, and presenting “a new framework that should serve as an academic basis for discussing the city in the future.” The book consists of 16 chapters in two parts, each authored by a university researcher who is not affiliated with the Institute. “Part I Local Autonomy and the Administrative and Financial Systems of the City” mainly corresponds to issue (2). Discussions by researchers specializing in political science, administrative science, law, and finance are arranged by systems, concepts, and the realities of local government. “Part II: Urban Dynamics and Urban Policies” mainly addresses issue (1), and contains essays by researchers specializing in engineering, economics, and sociology on the dynamics and policy responses of contemporary cities from the perspectives of sustainability, globalization, environment and energy, welfare society, urban disaster, urban individuality, community, and poverty. Although all the chapters focus on the subject of cities and self-governance, they also delve into subjects in their disciplinary contexts. In other words, this is a collection of papers that both deepen and broaden the subject of cities and self-governance. This is the academic significance as well as the most important point of this book.
 
Asami, one of the individuals who introduced the book, wrote “Chapter 9: Evaluation of Urban Sustainability,” which organizes the concept of sustainability and introduces a set of indicators to measure urban sustainability and various domestic and international evaluation tools. This chapter also explains that, in assessing sustainability, it is necessary to evaluate cities not only for the present time but also in the future, and that there are issues to be addressed regarding the establishment of a future vision and the prediction of indicator values. On the other hand, it discusses the importance of using sustainability evaluation tools not just for overall results, but also for self-assessment to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each city through a relative understanding of the evaluation of each item.
 
The other introducer, Nakajima, wrote “Chapter 14: Urban Individuality and City Planning - Beyond the ‘City as a Problem.’” This chapter discusses the historical shift from the perspective of “the city as a problem” to “urban attractiveness” and “urban individuality.” It recognizes that we are once again entering an era of “the city as a problem” amid frequent disasters and global climate change, presents a view of the future of the society called “Creative Society,” and discusses the importance of expressing urban individuality that is rooted in the creativity of the people.
 

(Written by ASAMI Yasushi, Professor, School of Engineering / NAKAJIMA Naoto, Professor, School of Engineering / 2023)