[Feature: Viewing the City from Parks] Roundtable Discussion: The Meaning of Parks Continuing to Exist There

Today, under the theme of "Viewing the City Through its Parks," I would like to learn from all of you experts. Parks are used by many people; they are playgrounds for children and gathering places for the elderly. Recently, there seem to be cases where parks are intentionally left unfinished at the time of opening, leaving room for development by the local community.

To start our discussion: nowadays, classical play equipment like swings is disappearing from parks, replaced by safer alternatives, and children's play styles seem to be changing accordingly. Mr. Fukasawa, as the representative of Kotobuki Co., Ltd., which manufactures benches, play equipment, park maps, and signage, how do you see the trends in park equipment changing?

The history of urban parks dates back to the Dajokan Proclamation of the Meiji government. However, regarding the equipment itself, the Urban Park Act enacted in 1956 mandated the "Three Sacred Treasures" for children's parks: swings, slides, and sandboxes. Among these, I believe the sandbox remains a special presence due to its excellent versatility, as it doesn't limit the number of children who can play.

On the other hand, if we consider the "standard three" to include horizontal bars instead of a sandbox, I believe innovation occurred when the "combination play equipment" (multi-play structures) now commonly found in parks first appeared. These were initially developed in the US, and we imported them for a while before eventually manufacturing and evolving them ourselves. While the traditional Three Sacred Treasures had a fixed capacity per unit, combination equipment is characterized by its ability to improve efficiency using capacity per square meter as an index. During the era of urban overcrowding and high birth rates, the goal was to increase the number of children who could play on a single piece of equipment.

As for today, fitness equipment has appeared, and a new trend called "inclusive playgrounds" is emerging. In Tokyo, rather than "inclusive," they use the phrase "parks where everyone can play." We are in an era where play equipment is expected to bridge divides so that it can be used by anyone.

For example, this means playing regardless of whether one has a handicap or the gap between rich and poor. In this way, current park equipment is moving from an era of increasing capacity to one of segmentation to meet various purposes. I perceive that we have entered an era where each individual park is trying to "sharpen its edge"—in other words, to express its unique character.

The equipment in the children's park near my house was also replaced, and the appearance of the park has changed significantly since I was a child. So many changes are happening even with a single piece of equipment. Ms. Takeuchi, having been involved with various parks as a landscaping specialist for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government until last year, how do you view these changes?

At metropolitan parks, we have also renovated a great deal of play equipment over the past few years. Parks are characterized by the fact that different people can use the same space depending on the time: the elderly gather in the morning, and children play boisterously during the day.

As Mr. Fukasawa mentioned, in small parks, "swings, slides, and sandboxes" have been considered the Three Sacred Treasures. However, a newspaper article a few years ago suggested that the new Three Sacred Treasures are "cafes, barbecues, and convenience stores." But based on the needs I hear on the ground, I think they are "Western-style toilets, gazebos (azumaya), and fitness equipment." Requests for these have been increasing recently, especially from the elderly.

Regarding Western-style toilets, there used to be many voices saying they didn't want to sit on public toilet seats because they were dirty, so we always left one Japanese-style (squat) stall. However, the number of elderly people who do not require Japanese-style toilets has increased, and recently we hear requests for all stalls to be Western-style with heated seats.

As for gazebos, because summers have been extremely hot lately, there is a strong need for places to shelter from intense sunlight or heavy rain. We receive requests for gazebos not only from the elderly but also from users with children. As for fitness equipment, I initially wondered who would use it, but once installed, I found many users stretching their backs or doing things like bench presses. Even in Hibiya Park, you see people in suits hanging from horizontal bars during their lunch breaks; it's very popular.

When I pass by local parks, I see various users, and as Ms. Takeuchi says, parks are used by many generations.

Mr. Ishikawa, in your work in landscape design, what points have you considered when approaching park design?

When I was in the design department of a general contractor, I didn't have many opportunities to design urban parks, but I created several small "provided parks" (publicly accessible parks attached to condominiums or commercial facilities). In designing these, the challenge was to make them "look like a park"—how to make them recognizable as a park at a glance. Therefore, the emergence of combination play equipment was welcome. Having just one of those makes it look like a park immediately.

At the time, I thought such things were important for park design, but after having my own children, I realized that children play in places that aren't play equipment. It's actually the parents who feel relieved by the presence of play equipment. To a child, there isn't much difference between a multi-play structure and a rusty horizontal bar. The fitness equipment that appeared later is also fascinating to watch when children take it over to play. They use it in ways you'd never expect.

The challenge for designers is determining how much they must express through design for the intended users. For example, the recently discussed "exclusive benches" (anti-homeless benches) are an example where the provider decides how they should be used. The design challenge is to find a balance between the usage desired by the client and the freedom of the user to choose how to use it.

Instead of the Three Sacred Treasures, I think the three "ultimate weapons" in recent parks are "Starbucks, decks, and lawns."

Is that an image of a space where one can lie down on the grass with a delicious drink and relax while looking at the greenery?

Yes. Talking with students, I realized that parks have a similar structure to beach huts. To allow for relaxation within the city, parks are designed with a deck as an intermediate between artificial objects like Starbucks and the nature beyond. Beach huts are similar; people from the city change there, touch the sand and sea, and then return. They mediate between the city and nature.

So they play a role in switching the "stage," so to speak.

Exactly. A deck is something between the nature symbolized by the lawn and the city; it's a mediating presence where you can touch nature without getting your hands or feet dirty. From that perspective, a bench is also a small deck, or like an engawa (veranda), serving as a device that mediates between the Starbucks and the lawn.

Comparing it to an engawa is interesting. The appeal of a bench is not just as a resting place; once you sit down and start a conversation, it becomes another world. It's a place where various things can happen depending on how you perceive it.

Even with something as simple as a bench, where and how it is placed in a park is part of the site design. Mr. Fukasawa, how do you view the role of the bench?

Objects have a part that restricts human behavior, and I believe that is necessary. In the case of park benches, there is a debate over whether to install those with backrests or without. If you want people to sit comfortably, a backrest is better. However, because there are more parts, the cost goes up, and the seat height is made about 1.5 times higher than those without backrests.

Still, in parks surrounded by housing, benches with backrests are more appropriate so that the users' gaze doesn't drift into the neighboring property. In this way, park design sometimes involves blocking or guiding sightlines and controlling the behavior of users for the sake of landscape design.

I often say, "A bench is a sign." Mr. Ishikawa mentioned that decks are an intermediate zone between nature and artificial space. To give a similar example, during the Great East Japan Earthquake, Kotobuki donated a large number of benches to temporary housing complexes. The inside of temporary housing is a private space, but the outside belongs to no one. They were partitioned off, and the community was fragmented. Such places were created in many complexes immediately after the disaster.

We placed benches in those complexes. Of course, the purpose was to provide a place for elderly victims to rest, but at the same time, we wanted to create a landmark that said, "This is everyone's place."

It's interesting that benches in public spaces carry both the functionality of "sitting" and the symbolism of "it's okay to sit here because it's everyone's place."

Benches now have higher symbolism than the traditional Three Sacred Treasures of play equipment. Since the earthquake, Kotobuki has also focused on enhancing the disaster prevention functions of parks. Recently, we installed a power generation plant in a park in Shiga Prefecture. Although it's called a plant, it's an evolved version of a gazebo with solar panels on a large roof. It allows for charging and power supply, provides Wi-Fi, and can even emit mist during the summer.

In Tokyo, parks range from large to small, and I imagine their roles vary depending on their scale.

In the past, various clauses were established in the Urban Park Act, and functions were divided according to scale. However, today, residents and natural environments differ by region, and usage varies as well. I believe the reality is that local government officials are innovating to create unique parks in each location.

I thought Mr. Fukasawa's gazebo with a plant is a facility well-suited for the coming post-COVID era. Even in non-disaster times, if there's a small roof in a park with a table, bench, and Wi-Fi, I would want to work outside too.

In Kohoku New Town in Yokohama, where I live, more people started going outside during the pandemic. Even on weekday afternoons, you see many fathers and sons playing catch. When I survey parks morning, noon, and night, first come the people with preschoolers in the morning. In the afternoon, there's a time when elementary school students gather after class. In the evening, a community of five or six elderly people gathers at the gazebo at a set time. There are also differences by location; on greenways, you see health-conscious middle-aged and older runners.

When I see this kind of usage, I wonder what we as park creators can provide. In extreme terms, I think just having a wide space with a roof and a power source might be enough. Middle schoolers studying, office workers working—everyone is starting to do outside what they used to do inside. I feel that parks will be expected to serve as such receptacles in the future.

During the first state of emergency last year, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government received complaints about crowding, so they put up "do not enter" tape on all play equipment in metropolitan parks, banning their use. However, Kohoku New Town in Yokohama did not ban them.

Is that due to a difference in local government policy?

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government made the decision for metropolitan parks, and all parks with designated managers also banned the use of play equipment. In the case of Yokohama City, I don't know if it was city policy, but perhaps because Kohoku New Town has greenways, I didn't see children concentrating on play equipment and creating crowds at all.

They were catching insects in the greenery, fishing for crayfish by the water, or riding bicycles down gentle grassy slopes. It was quite an interesting sight to see them playing in their own ways.

We also conducted a survey on local government responses after the state of emergency. Of the 333 local governments nationwide we have worked with, only 51 suspended the use of play equipment. Other governments limited themselves to posting warning signs, so it seems that responses were surprisingly flexible at the local level.

Statistical evidence is important, but I was interested in seeing what was actually happening in individual parks. In Chofu City, "do not use" tape was also applied to play equipment. But actually, what happened before that was that when children could no longer go to school, neighborhood parks that hadn't been used much before became as lively as children's playgrounds. In many parks in Chofu, you could see scenes like the old housing complexes of the past; the parks seemed happy to be played in by children after a long time.

Then, the next thing was "you must not play in the park." Children were scolded by neighborhood seniors to "stay home." I wondered about that, but then, dead-end streets in residential areas turned into children's playgrounds.

The asphalt surfaces became covered in chalk drawings like blackboards, and children overflowed into vacant lots designated for future city parks. When park use was banned, places that could serve as substitutes for parks appeared throughout the city.

That is very interesting.

Ms. Takeuchi mentioned earlier that park users change depending on the time of day and the era. I believe the primary condition for this "reusability" is that the park is simply "there."

There was a time when the number of users was used as an index to measure the value of a park. Unused parks were treated as if they had no value, and local government officials struggled to create "bustle." However, from the citizens' perspective, I think the privilege of a park is that it doesn't have to be bustling. Even if it seems wasteful at first glance, there is significant value in the park continuing to exist there. Even if it seems useless in daily life, securing open space within a city is a feat that only a park can perform.

The reason streets and vacant lots turned into playgrounds during the pandemic was that local families started bringing out picnic chairs and small tents. As soon as those were placed, a sense of "it's okay to play here" was born. It's similar to the symbolism of a bench, where a small device gives meaning to a place.

For parks, we just need to let users replace what is necessary as needed. I don't think we need to have much debate about whether the park itself is useful or useless in the short term.

Hearing that reminds me of my own childhood. Of course there were parks in the city, but I also used to play in vacant lots where construction materials were kept, turning them into secret bases. A clear image of this is "Doraemon." Gian treats concrete pipes as a stage, and that place turns into a park.

That park is a landscape from the era of high economic growth, when the whole city was a construction site.

It's a scene that wouldn't exist in today's parks, but children gather when they realize they can play there.

Nowadays, if you build a secret base in a vacant lot, someone will report you. A friend of mine was called to school because their elementary school son pulled out park materials to build a secret base. The mother told him to do it at a place like a "play park" (adventure playground), but the boy reportedly said, "Then it won't be a secret base anymore."

That kid has good instincts.

Indeed. But now there are no such places in the city. Moreover, neighbors don't scold children directly; they immediately report them to the school or the city office, which makes everyone even more hesitant.

Many interesting points have been raised. Do any of you have examples of what makes a good park? For instance, in Ota Ward where I live, there is a park called "Kusappara Park" where residents intentionally chose not to install play equipment and instead adopted a system where they manage it themselves.

In a park in Futako-Tamagawa, residents reportedly started a park club before it was even finished and held workshops to think about maintenance and management methods after completion. Such cases are increasing lately. I was very surprised to see cosmos flowers blooming in a flowerbed managed by local mothers, with a sign saying, "You can pick the flowers." The sense of "it's okay to be here" conveyed by that sign is wonderful.

Another example is Isamu Noguchi's famous sculpture "Black Slide Mantra" in Odori Park, Sapporo. When I visited with my family, the work looked like a pure piece of art to an adult, so my wife and I stopped about 30 meters away. But the children walked up without hesitation and started playing on it as a slide. That was a thought-provoking experience. Adults see things through their "meaning," but I was reminded that there are various possibilities.

The key points in those two examples are how one perceives the space and how the users decide the rules. Signs in parks are usually lists of prohibitions, which makes one feel nervous, but seeing one that says "Please do as you like" feels very fresh.

Parks don't have fixed common rules or usage; rather, they leave those to individual judgment. For example, some parks ban playing catch, but there is no law as a basis for that; it's just banned through on-site operation. Since it's ultimately at the discretion of the site, there could just as easily be a sign saying, "It's okay to play catch here."

I see, the beauty of a park is that it can be used with flexible judgment. When my children were small, I used to watch the other users for a while to observe what the rules were. Then, for example, an older child would talk to us and let us play together. On those days, I would go home satisfied, feeling we had a good time playing.

I believe every park has a human drama. For example, there is a group that does an activity called the "Piece of Love Movement," where they leave a single watering can in a flowerbed to encourage people to water the plants.

A park is, metaphorically speaking, like cheering for high school baseball. Some people cheer for national-level teams like Osaka Toin, but they also care about the results of their own child's high school. Dramas like those in the world of high school baseball happen in every single park. Kotobuki's research is like high school baseball reporting, seeking out the dramas of parks across the country.

There is also an emotional feeling unique to each region, similar to how high school baseball isn't only about aiming to win at Koshien.

That's a fascinating story. Speaking of stories held by parks, Professor Ihowa Shinji, who also contributed an essay to this special feature, wrote a book called "Hibiya Park: Learning from 100 Years of Pride," which depicts the history and life of Hibiya Park. As Mr. Fukasawa says, such stories and possibilities exist in every park.

Recent social media—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—are all centered on people. They don't have a place where information linked to a specific location is archived.

But what happened in this place? I believe parks have value as historical archives of a city, serving as stages where resident dramas occur.

I once saw research at a geography conference where, by collecting hashtags from tweets at a tourist spot, you could see who posted and how often for each location. Is the image that by layering such information chronologically, the history of the place and the dramas of the people involved are accumulated?

Yes. I think such information needs to maintain a certain level of "officialness." We are also operating a location-based SNS in cooperation with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, but filtering hashtags alone includes negative posts or topics of limited interest, so the challenge remains of where to draw the line for regulation.

I have also been thinking about "place" recently. Specifically, how many people feel that a park is "their own" (jibun-goto). Until now, the value of a park was measured by conditions such as area per person, biodiversity, or how many degrees it lowers the temperature. But I feel that the number of people who take ownership of a park is an important indicator.

Last year, when part of a large-scale park called Takaido Park opened, not many people gathered on the opening day, partly because it was raining during the pandemic. Similarly, about three years ago, a small waterway called "Everyone's Dream Waterway," maintained and managed by the ward, opened within Zenpukuji Park. It was a project realized after proposing to the ward mayor that we wanted to create a stream elementary schoolers could enter. On the opening day, many elementary schoolers and their mothers participated, and it was very lively and joyful.

Construction department staff work hard on every park project, but at the resident briefing for Takaido Park, we only heard complaints and requests like "What will happen to my property boundary?" or "I'm worried about crime if a park is built." I wondered what caused this difference.

I believe we must gradually increase the number of people who feel that park creation is their own business, starting from the design and development stages. Comparing location and area, Takaido Park should have a higher contribution to the region, but the level of happiness felt by the surrounding people is completely different, even just looking at the moment of opening.

Those are very contrasting examples.

Listening to Mr. Fukasawa's story about the "A Piece of Love Movement," I felt that park-making needs mechanisms that heighten the awareness that one is personally involved in the park.

In Kiyose City's "(Tentative Name) Park with Flowers," similar to Futako-Tamagawa, we have had residents participate during the two-year period from land acquisition to completion, nurturing people who want to do specific things once the park is finished. I feel that future park-making must incorporate such systems.

I want to comfort the person in charge of Takaido Park, which had a lonely opening. This is because, if you think on a 100-year span, there is no way a park won't be useful.

Thank you. On that day, in the rain, a mother holding a baby told me, "I've been looking forward to this," which was a saving grace.

In Mr. Ishikawa's talk, there was mention of a "feeling that it's okay to play" or a "feeling that it's okay to be here," and I think this sensation is very important. I served as a supervisor when developing the inclusive playground at Kinuta Park. As Mr. Fukasawa mentioned earlier, we didn't call it "inclusive" but named it "Everyone's Plaza" and actively publicized the concept that any child is welcome to come and play.

As a result, we received feedback in a survey from a parent of a child with a disability saying, "I was so happy to be told 'it's okay to go.'" It is important to show that "it's okay" in some form.

Conversely, if you show "it's okay" too much, it becomes a strong signifier and can become oppressive to people who don't want to participate. How to communicate that is a very subtle point.

Previously, someone came to consult me about how to sell a vast piece of private land in Tokyo. At that time, I told them that we are in a "community-first era." The point is not what kind of thing you build on that land, but how much a community has grown there.

For example, even if it is sold and an apartment building is built, something like a pocket park will be necessary. At that time, the value of the land should change depending on whether or not a good relationship has been established with the local people. I think the perspective of how many people you can involve in a single park is important.

Currently, we are promoting our own app that shows the number of followers for parks. Fujisawa City is cooperating enthusiastically. It's a system where you can see how much a park is revitalized and contributing to the community by visualizing the number of followers and usage status for each park by region.

For example, the number of followers for Hibiya Park is dozens of times that of a general neighborhood park, but the spread of the app is not about trying to bridge such gaps. I want everyone to know the value of being involved in park use and the regional context. It's no longer an era where people gather just by building a good park; I feel a growing sense that the need for mechanisms where users actively participate is sinking in.

Listening to everyone, it feels like I'm listening to a lecture on urban planning. The talk about how many people can be increased who can be involved in the city as stakeholders appears in urban planning textbooks, but parks are now becoming exactly that kind of place for practice.

However, I think we are in an era where it's not top-down, but it's also not entirely bottom-up. When setting development policies for large-scale parks or acquiring land, you can't just tell residents to do whatever they want. I think this sense of balance—involving them within certain limits—is important.

To ensure that sense, we are currently working on making playground equipment movable. Once installed, playground equipment must stay there for 20 years. Our products have a 30-year warranty, so they have to be placed for another 10 years, but we are trying a test case to make them movable with simple construction. Last year, we did this with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

I thought parks could have a bit more flexibility. While leaving the broad guidelines to the local government, I think the sense of balance is important: to what extent is it possible to develop parks that can be changed improvisationally within the culture, color, and daily observations of the residents?

I think the balance between broad policies for the entire city and the individual needs of users needs to be adjusted over time. In an era where everyone has a device with location information, if things that were previously invisible can be visualized and measured, we will be able to make things more efficient than ever based on the length of stay and popularity of public facilities.

However, if we push that too far, I think we'll be in trouble when an unexpected situation occurs. Optimizing could mean becoming unable to respond to situations that weren't considered at the design stage. I think we are learning this now in this era of frequent disasters.

That's why I think there is value in the fact that a park, once built, cannot be moved for 30 years. I think it's important for a city to have a certain number of places like parks that move very slowly, while leaving the parts that change rapidly to the private sector.

It's like a position as an anchor to prevent the degree of freedom in public space from swinging too far.

Exactly. I think a park is, first and foremost, an "institution."

In both my research and on-site work, I have thought about parks and green spaces by dividing them into three scales: the city level, the district level, and the site level.

At the city level, natural conditions vary, so the placement of parks needs to correspond to them. Current urban planning for parks in Tokyo is based on the Tokyo Green Space Plan from about 80 years ago, and the policy of securing green space along small and medium-sized rivers has continued uninterrupted.

Concrete examples of this are Inokashira Park, Zenpukuji Park, and the green belts on the Musashino Plateau. Takaido Park is also part of a plan that attempted to develop a belt-like green space between the Tamagawa Aqueduct and the Kanda River in the suburban area around Suginami Ward.

Recently, there are cases where urban planning park zones are removed because buildings have been erected and development is difficult, but buildings are demolished in 50 or 60 years. Right now, things built during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics or the high economic growth period are reaching a time for demolition and renewal due to aging. There are examples where the Metropolitan Expressway was built where a river was designated, which is now being reconsidered, or where part of a hotel built on planned park land is being redeveloped as green space upon its reconstruction. In this way, when you view parks and green spaces at the city level, there are places that must be secured with a 100-year plan.

On the other hand, at the district level, we think on the scale of redevelopment target areas, and at the site level, like provided parks, the thinking becomes important on how to decide the placement of buildings, nature, and green space triggered by redevelopment.

The systems for socially controlling these three scales are also gradually changing to a bottom-up type, and authority for urban planning systems is being transferred to basic local governments such as wards and cities. In the future, through DX and other means, the connection between site-level movements among citizens and the city level may be visualized, making it clear that one is also contributing to city-making. I hope that systems and mechanisms that allow people to engage with this as a personal matter will gradually be established.

The perspective of switching spatial scales is exactly the perspective of geography.

From the standpoint of promoting location-based social networking, I also want to increase opportunities to communicate the design intentions of parks to citizens. Some local government officials say the details of the development plan are on the website, but users rarely access it, and most users don't know the reason why there is a fountain in the park.

Information about why a park is there in the first place is very valuable, and I feel that organizing information for a long-term perspective will be necessary.

This is just a random thought, but now that where you are can be easily viewed on a map, I thought there could be a design that uses technology to let you feel that you are committed to a 100-year urban plan.

It might not be clear at the ground level, but you make it understandable that it makes sense on a 100-year span, as seen in maps and history. If it's made easy to understand at the urban planning level, even if you sometimes find a fountain in a park to be in the way, you might be able to accept it, thinking it's okay for it to stay there because it's been there since you were a child.

On the other hand, in real space, I feel it's okay to have many more things that are nonsensical or uninterpretable.

Doesn't the design of playground equipment also not necessarily have to meet only modern needs? It would be interesting if Kotobuki created a category like "Others" on the last few pages of their catalog, featuring incomprehensible furniture that doesn't fit into any use, where you can't even tell if it's for sitting or playing (laughs). If it were me, I'd want to choose something like that.

That is an important margin. An example is the signage of a mixed-use commercial facility in Roppongi. Since various places and shops are arranged on a vast site in that facility, if you encourage movement according to purpose, the circularity doesn't function very well. Therefore, it is intentionally built so that people walk around.

That kind of room for discussion, or room for users to individually interpret and communicate, is also important. For example, if a film director explained all the intentions of a work, it wouldn't be as exciting. It's because critics watch and interpret it that the film industry thrives, and I hope parks can be viewed from that kind of perspective.

There are parts that are controlled and parts that are not, and those might show unexpected development, or new ways of use might occur by finding margins, or people around might read deeply into it and create a world.

I think people who design parks design them with the hope that they will become good places. I don't know if those "margins" manifest immediately or are found in unexpected ways after decades, but I thought the interest lies in the combination of parts that are firmly fixed with intention and things that are not controlled.

Designing margins as an institution is difficult, but I think it's important.

What we find fun is a place with a bit of an overflow or a "happening" in a good sense, rather than something that is too programmed. So, not just limited to parks, what we've discussed applies to many areas.

The word "urban anchor" also appeared, and parks also play the role of disaster prevention bases during disasters. Especially as natural disasters occur frequently, I think their importance is increasing. Mr. Takeuchi, what are your thoughts on this?

In Tokyo, we have emphasized the role of disaster prevention parks since around the time of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. Currently, Kan-nana (Circular Route 7) is envisioned as an emergency transport route for disaster prevention, and the parks secured in a green belt shape outside of it serve as disaster prevention bases.

It's a system where if the east side is affected, supplies are transported from parks on the west side using Kan-nana, and vice versa. Each park has "kamado benches" (benches that become stoves in an emergency) and is equipped with disaster toilets, and they are also planned to be usable as bases for the Self-Defense Forces. The old green belt plans are still being utilized in this way today, and in that sense, the existence of long-term planned green spaces is truly important.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake, what is required for disaster prevention has also changed. We receive many inquiries not only about the specifications of facilities, such as installing power generation equipment, but also about how to use facilities and evacuation routes during a disaster. I also feel that residents' awareness of disaster prevention is increasing.

There is a house in my neighborhood that often has barbecues, and they were a very reassuring presence when the area lost power during the Great East Japan Earthquake. Having opportunities to gather in the neighborhood on a daily basis makes it strong in times of emergency. While it's important to have disaster prevention bases ready and to conduct evacuation drills, I thought that making a park a place for a festival even once a year would also enhance the local disaster prevention capability.

About five years ago, when I participated in a panel discussion at the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, someone who was handling recovery efforts at the site of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake said something similar. The power for local people to manage things in an emergency is born from everyday relationships.

After all, since the Great East Japan Earthquake, securing power is a major concern in times of emergency. I mentioned the example of installing power generation plants in parks earlier, and charging smartphones in an emergency is a dire issue. Things that aren't life-threatening are often thought of as secondary, but whether or not digital devices can be used carries a large weight in maintaining one's humanity as a modern person.

I believe there is a role for manufacturers to play in approaching this area.

Finally, I would like to ask each of you for a few words about the future of parks in the city, from your respective involvements.

What I realized from today's talk is that the scales of the drawings we look at in our daily involvement with parks are all different. Even so, it's interesting how we can communicate while somewhat feeling each other out. Parks appear in various scales within a city, and each has a different form and meaning. I thought this is the interesting part of discussing parks.

I still believe that a park is ultimately an institution, and I want it to continue to be one. I felt this way when I was involved in the redevelopment of Nakano Central Park. It was a plan where university buildings and commercial facilities were built to surround a central park on a vast site of about 1.5 hectares, with various shops and cafes.

While thinking about how to make it a lively place, I drew various plans, such as making it a sports park or creating a fountain plaza. But a park originally doesn't have to do anything. The commercial facilities will handle the attracting of customers. It's fine for the park to just be a lawn. I think "not having to do anything" is something that can only happen in a facility protected by an institution. I think it's important for parks to maintain a stance that is unswayed by short-term values or meanings within the city.

When I think about the future of parks now, I am reminded of Kiyoshi Inoshita, who was in charge of park administration during the Tokyo City era. He is a great predecessor whom I respect, and he wrote an essay saying, "In 100 years, parks will disappear," and that 100 years later is 2028.

What "disappearing" means is that people will come to live in places where nature is normally protected. Mr. Inoshita was someone who created everything from children's playgrounds to cemeteries—literally "from the cradle to the grave"—and there is no one, from babies to the elderly, who is not involved with parks. It starts with a baby's park debut, playing on equipment, doing sports as a youth, running as a middle-aged person, and ending in a cemetery at the last. It's something that warmly embraces life itself rather than just being a facility.

When I think about what is important, I believe it is the continued existence of open space, which contributes to the happiness of people of all ages. It's fine to have some buildings, but buildings are not permanent; I think the role of a park is fundamentally to be a place where people live their lives amidst greenery.

It's interesting to see the composition where Mr. Takeuchi, with his long experience in administration, emphasizes flexibility, while I, from a private sector background, emphasize rigidity (laughs).

Following this flow, I should also emphasize rigidity, and I actually think so. Compared to the past when people were bound by society or land, we can now choose our communities, and that degree of freedom is increasing. If you ask what role parks play in that, I think they are "living things" that create a new type of community, derived from not excluding other users, while steering toward maintaining a certain level of flexibility.

What I imagine then is not "park" as a common noun, but "a park" with the indefinite article. Thinking about parks as a whole makes it too abstract, but by having people imagine it as a place where they belong and create a good community, I think parks can fulfill their role.

In the past, "creating a community" was a big topic with a somewhat uniform image, but today, communities are becoming increasingly diverse. When "you" try to create a community in a good way, I think the place that becomes the center of that is the park.

I feel that there is a role as a kind of anchor or rigidity there, and the fact that you cannot deny other users creates involvement with people you didn't intend to interact with.

Today has been a very fulfilling session, giving us the opportunity to think about many things regarding parks, such as changes over a long-term span, stories of various scales large and small, and connections with communities and people.

Thank you very much for your time today despite your busy schedules.