[Special Feature: Post-COVID Tokyo Theory] Hidenobu Jinnai: Tokyo, the Water City That Overcame the Pandemic

2022/08/05

In order to break free from the deadlock of modern urban civilization, various attempts at urban regeneration have been unfolding in many parts of the world for some time. There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic will further accelerate these movements that are carving out a new era.

The movement to move away from the 20th-century car-centric society and return streets and squares to the hands of people had been developing and attracting attention in advanced cities such as Paris, Barcelona, and Milan even before COVID-19. However, as outdoor restaurants and cafes became recommended during the pandemic, this movement has strengthened everywhere in the world. Even in Japanese cities, which had previously stubbornly refused to allow cafes and restaurants to operate on public streets, the direction has finally changed toward actively exploring those possibilities due to the pandemic.

In fact, movements to appeal for the importance of open spaces and public spaces within the city had already begun in Tokyo. To begin with, entering the 2000s after the collapse of the bubble economy, the power of private developers grew in Japan's large cities against the backdrop of a global market-priority competitive society. The construction of massive skyscraper complexes and large-scale tower mansions proceeded actively, and in exchange, it became difficult to realize truly rich open spaces that guarantee publicity and public interest for citizens and residents. Human connections and communities inevitably became thin. Fumihiko Maki's provocative paper "Another Utopia" (Shinkenchiku, September 2015 issue), written out of that sense of crisis, served as a catalyst, and discussions re-evaluating the importance of public and open spaces have become active in Japan as well (Fumihiko Maki and Tomoharu Makabe, eds., "Another Utopia: Thinking about the City from 'Open Space'", NTT Publishing, 2019). In various fields considering the environment and lifestyle, the word "commons" has come to be frequently mentioned as a place shared or used together by people.

It was impressive that the importance of such urban open spaces was strongly advocated in New York, a high-density city that reached the peak of the pandemic. Ideas from the field of landscape architecture gained power, and the importance of the existence of lush outdoor parks received great attention. In particular, waterfront parks along the East River and Hudson River were highly valued as precious places where people could immerse themselves in a sense of liberation while avoiding crowds.

Looking back at history, one realizes that in Japanese cities, meaningful open spaces where people gathered often existed along the waterfront. The fact that things corresponding to the squares of Western cities were concentrated at the water's edge was common to Kyoto, Edo-Tokyo, and other cities. However, as the modern era of land transport arrived and water transport declined, the places where people gathered moved to street intersections and around stations, and the value of the waterfront was lost.

During the high-growth period of the 1960s, water pollution reached its peak, and buildings standing along foul-smelling rivers turned their backs to the water. However, as the era came full circle, Tokyo experienced the arrival of a waterfront boom once in the early 80s after moving out of the industrialized society. First, in the 70s, water quality gradually improved, fish returned to the Sumida River, and traditions of fireworks and yakatabune (houseboats) were revived. That flow of waterfront restoration reached the bay area around the beginning of the 80s. Stimulated by the global trend of waterfront redevelopment around old ports, art galleries, live houses, restaurants, imported furniture shops, and discos moved into warehouses in areas that had handled port functions, such as Okawabata, Fukagawa, Tsukishima, and Shibaura, attracting people's interest as a so-called loft culture.

While the image of the waterfront was rising through these private-sector, guerrilla-like, and interesting small-scale movements, the Japanese economy improved in the late 80s, leading to the bubble economy. Attention focused on former port spaces in the bay area as ideal sites for developing business and professional spaces, the new economic foundation. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government also formulated the Waterfront Subcenter plan for No. 13 Landfill and moved toward its realization. That plan was originally intended to disperse business functions concentrated in the city center to the offshore subcenter, with the idea of effectively utilizing the former headquarters sites of relocated companies in the city center as green spaces and open spaces. However, the bubble burst, the Urban Frontier exhibition scheduled for 1996 was forced to be canceled, and the Waterfront Subcenter plan ended up deadlocked. Since then, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government rapidly lost interest in the waterfront and became unable to even conceptualize its future.

Consequently, the energy of private urban development also retreated from the bay area. While the construction of tower mansions, which provided guaranteed profits, was actively carried out, major urban developments concentrated again in the inland areas of the city center, such as OMY (Otemachi, Marunouchi, Yurakucho), Roppongi, Toranomon, Shibuya, and Nihonbashi. It can be said that while Western countries in the 21st century utilized waterfront land in coastal areas that had lost their original logistics and industrial roles as places holding great potential for a new era—mixing diverse functions and pushing forward attractive city building—Tokyo has continued to develop the city inward in the exact opposite direction.

However, looking toward the post-COVID era, as remote work increases, voices questioning the idea of building more skyscraper offices in the land spaces of the city center and accelerating unipolar concentration are growing louder. There is a need to re-evaluate the decentralized model that the Waterfront Subcenter aimed for, and it seems the time has come to conceptualize comprehensive town planning—not just high-rise mansions—for coastal areas and riverbanks that hold the potential to create attractive 21st-century spaces.

In the bay area, there are several landfills (islands) created in various eras, forming a kind of archipelago. These diverse islands, each with different creation periods, origins, shapes, and roles, should ideally be connected by boat and bicycle to allow for circulation. In fact, many of the competition venues for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games were concentrated on these island-like landfills in the bay area. A great opportunity to introduce water transportation to supplement the fragile transportation infrastructure consisting only of buses was missed, but it is not too late to start now. There should be great potential hidden there.

The revival of water transport is also a major theme for the post-COVID era. In fact, in the summer of 2019 before the pandemic began, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government conducted a social experiment using water transport for commuting between Harumi and Nihonbashi, which achieved success. This was against the backdrop of many people coming to live in the numerous landfills spreading across the bay area, including Harumi and Toyosu. I also took a trial ride and felt hopeful about its realization. However, with the pandemic, subsequent movements have not been visible. Looking at world-leading waterfront cities like Venice, of course, as well as New York, London, Hamburg, and Amsterdam, they actively utilize water transport as a daily means of transportation, including commuting. There are also movements for coordination with land transportation, such as the commonization of passes and tickets.

In Tokyo, I hope to see the realization of regular water bus services that go beyond the conventional tourism framework, including the operation of water buses between Haneda and the city center, which has been proposed and socially experimented with for some time, with public support added as necessary. The redevelopment of the Tsukiji Market site, which is currently being considered, could be a perfect opportunity for this. Additionally, water taxis are gaining popularity. Like in Venice or Boston, it should be possible to arrive directly at a hotel from the airport (Haneda in Tokyo) by water taxi. It is said that the biggest problem for water transport operators is a critical shortage of places to moor boats. Many cities overseas have created rules to moor such boats along rivers and canals, which instead creates the charm of a water city where boats float.

Domestically, the movement toward water city regeneration in Osaka is remarkable. In Tokyo, urban development topics are numerous and tend to be scattered, but in Osaka, industry, government, and academia are united in concentrating energy on water city regeneration, achieving results one after another. In the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a research group for water city regeneration was organized, where companies, private organizations, and experts work on problems together, and the administration responds flexibly by removing conventional regulations and launching new initiatives for waterfront utilization one after another.

One of these, the charm of the "Kitahama Terrace" group of shops—river decks that appeared on the opposite bank of Nakanoshima along the Tosabori River—is exceptional. A system was created where the private sector can comprehensively occupy the riverbed according to rules. On public land inside the seawall, terraces were extended from private buildings over the seawall, where stylish restaurants, cafes, and wine bars were established, realizing a wonderful waterfront space full of a sense of liberation. The "Sumida River Renaissance" initiative, led by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government with the cooperation of Taito, Sumida, Chuo, and Koto wards (later joined by Arakawa Ward), also used this ambitious Osaka experiment as a model and established a system called "Kawa-terrace." This allows private operators and others to receive special occupancy permits to install river decks and operate food and beverage businesses in areas designated by the river administrator. It became possible to operate private restaurants and cafes utilizing the interior of river areas facing the Sumida River and others. After social experiments starting in 2013, it has been promoted in earnest since 2018 and has already been realized in several locations. An early example, "LYURO Tokyo Kiyosumi THE SHARE HOTELS," which appeared at the foot of Kiyosu Bridge, was realized through the renovation and conversion of an office building nearly 30 years old. It has a restaurant where you can enjoy craft beer on the second level (with a hotel on the upper floors), and the wooden deck in front along the Sumida River is a wonderful outdoor waterfront space that anyone can enter.

Meanwhile, at the ward level, Taito Ward learned from advanced successful cases in Hiroshima, known as a city of rivers, and realized the "Sumida Park Open Cafe" in 2013 as the first open cafe in Tokyo using riverbed land by a private operator. The purpose is to create constant bustle in the Sumida River waterfront and its surrounding areas and to revitalize the region. With the geographical advantage of being able to view the Skytree directly in front, the two opened shops are gaining popularity.

In parallel with these small-scale but valuable efforts for waterfront utilization, two ambitious large-scale waterfront development projects were underway in central Tokyo and were completed exactly between the spring and autumn of 2020 during the pandemic. Unfortunately, it seems they could not hold glamorous opening ceremonies, but since then, they have been successfully attracting people and broadcasting their charm.

One is a complex commercial facility named "Tokyo Mizumachi" built under the elevated tracks between Tobu Railway's Asakusa Station and Tokyo Skytree Station. It was developed as one with the waterfront promenade along the Kitajukken River and is a project with great publicity for the regeneration of the water city. How to utilize the space under these elevated tracks had been a long-standing pending issue. Despite the creation of Tokyo Skytree, the precious area along the Kitajukken River had not been utilized at all. The fact that Tobu Railway teamed up with the local Sumida Ward to achieve a high-quality, true urban regeneration project is highly evaluated.

Behind it to the north spreads Sumida Park, which inherits a circuit-style garden with a pond from the former suburban residence of the Mito Tokugawa family. It is bustling with the chatter of young mothers gathering on cool electric power-assisted bicycles and the cheers of small children. One can strongly feel the importance of open public spaces with greenery and water for a city. The superb coordination between "Tokyo Mizumachi" and this historical park is noteworthy. What is increasingly expected in the post-COVID era are public spaces that utilize waterfronts and green spaces, which can be called such commons.

At the same time, the pedestrian-only "Sumida River Walk," attached to the Tobu Railway bridge crossing the Sumida River, also opened. This connected the Asakusa area and the Tokyo Skytree area, and this neighborhood sandwiching the Sumida River has been revived into a space full of unrecognizable charm.

Another major waterfront redevelopment project that was completed and opened during the pandemic is "WATERS takeshiba." This is a complex facility consisting of a hotel, offices, shops, and a theater developed by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) on the waterfront around Takeshiba Pier in Kaigan, Minato Ward. Along with Tobu Railway for the aforementioned "Tokyo Mizumachi" and "Sumida River Walk," the significance of important waterfront developments handled by railway companies that respect publicity and public interest, like JR East, appearing in Tokyo almost simultaneously is extremely large.

In addition to a landing for regular water bus services, a tidal flat that allows one to feel the nature of Tokyo Bay has also been realized. Despite being in the city center, the location surrounded by water and facing the Hama-rikyu Gardens feels like an urban oasis where one can spend elegant time. From the outdoor terrace of the Italian restaurant ("Pappagallo") located in front of the Shiki Theatre in the upper part of the commercial facility "atre," one can enjoy an unprecedented dynamic view of Tokyo's waterfront (Figure 1).

As described, several highly commendable waterfront regeneration movements have appeared in Tokyo. However, compared to Osaka, the movement for industry-government-academia collaboration is weak, and in particular, the interest of the business community in the waterfront is thin. Top executives of Tokyo companies only look at the world and seem to lack an orientation toward making their own city of Tokyo attractive. There are many citizen groups active on the stage of Tokyo's waterfront, but they are fragmented and do not easily unite. The number of water transport operators is also increasing, but the mechanism for coordination is weak. The administration is also not exercising leadership.

To overcome such a situation and realize a truly attractive water city in Tokyo, the "Water City Tokyo Future Conference" (Representative: Kotaro Takemura) started in earnest two years ago after a preparation period. Diverse experts in fields such as civil engineering, urban planning, architecture, landscape, art, and water transport gather to build networks between companies, government, and citizens, and engage in various activities to regenerate Water City Tokyo.

As a practice of this, on July 9 and 10, the "Kamejima River Mizube Matsuri" was held on the Kamejima River in Chuo Ward. Although it is a precious waterfront space that is open and comfortable without highways and protected by water gates on both sides, it remains unused and dormant. This was an attempt to utilize it in a good way with the cooperation of local people and make it a model for Tokyo's water city regeneration. After praying for safety and success at Shinkawa Daijingu Shrine, the event was packed with fun programs such as trial rides of SUPs, canoes, and E-boats, water tours by electric boats, and a liquor store tour connected to the memory of the wholesale liquor district. With the participation of many people, it became an event that gained momentum toward waterfront regeneration (Figure 2).

Post-COVID city building requires a bold shift in thinking like that of Western cities. There is no doubt that Tokyo's water city regeneration is one of the most steady and effective ways to expect results.