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Monday, November 12, 2018

Earthquakes and after in Japan

 Two major planning tools—redevelopment and land readjustment—are used in modern urban development in Japan. Land readjustment, which re-subdivides existing parcels, is a complex process involving modification of property boundaries to widen roads and to provide new open spaces and other public facilities. Under land readjustment, each landowner loses some land area, but the new infrastructure and improved accessibility add value to each parcel.

When the Kobe earthquake struck on January 17, 1995, the strongest ground motions hit the City of Kobe. Fires consumed 203 acres of urban land, more than 400,000 buildings were damaged, and thousands of households needed to relocate. Major east-west transportation systems were damaged or collapsed. The earthquake caused severe damage to neighborhood businesses, manufacturers, and the Port of Kobe. Eighty percent of the city’s 2,000 small- and medium-sized businesses failed.

The national government funded US$58 billion to reconstruct basic infrastructure, housing, and other physical facilities. The reconstructed housing and commercial buildings are seismically stronger than before, but residents of new multistory projects have had to adapt to new living environments that were quite different from the traditional one- and two-story housing to which they were accustomed. This transition was especially hard for senior citizens. In addition, the pressure to quickly construct housing, especially public housing, meant that many housing projects were built in expedient locations, rather than in locations that provided the access residents needed.

Kobe had approximately US$2.9 billion in debt and had to respond by cutting staff, lowering salaries, and reducing social-welfare programs. The city also tried to raise new revenues from land and asset sales. It has taken decades for the city to pay down its debt. Debt also extended to individual disaster victims and business owners who had difficulty repaying various types of disaster recovery loans.

By the fifth anniversary of the disaster, most debris had been cleared in Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures.

After the 2011 disaster, the central government was more generous with funding than it was in 1995. It no longer requires local governments to share in the cost of land readjustment and other recovery programs. Victims are compensated for the costs of rebuilding, displacement, and unemployment. Some worry, however, that a costly precedent has now been set without full consideration of the tremendous financial burden this places on the national government and citizens when the next huge disaster inevitably occurs.

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