After the second world war, in the 1950’s and 60’s Japan experienced a building boom. Not unsurprisingly perhaps, given the amount of destruction waged upon its cities and towns by the American air force. A lot of the old wooden buildings that had the quintessential Japanese flavor that we now only see in places like Kyoto or Nara were destroyed and new buildings erected in their place: A terrible shame, especially since many old neighbourhoods were destroyed not because they were damaged, but simply they were seen as a throwback to when Japan was an old fashioned, feudally governed country and now unrepresentative of the emerging Asian power that Japan was becoming.
So Japan’s love affair with concrete began – and the more the economy picked up, the more premises and building that needed to be built. Even the government, with its coffers steadily filling as the economic revival gathered pace got involved, it built the famous bullet train network as well as highways, express ways and local train networks that still are the envy of many countries in the world. At it’s height the construction industry employed more than 20% of the entire Japanese workforce, so construction companies came to wield considerable political clout too.
Some wily politicians realised that, with the vast amounts of money available for public works, companies would reward any information or help in swinging the contract their way. Japan’s pork-barrel had never been so full, and everyone was getting their share.
Unfortunately, what didn’t happen in tandem with the building boom was the evolution of a system of zoning building areas or anything resembling planning permission. Basically if you owned the land, and had the money to build, you could pretty much build what you wanted – such as a chemical works next to an infant school. It also meant that power cables are not buried (because that is more expensive for the power companies). In fact, most of the mountain views of Japan – and there are a lot – are almost without exception despoiled by ranges of power pylons criss-crossing their summits.
Of course, there came a point when the private sector’s needs were largely met, and the contracts for private construction declined. The construction companies began to put people out of work – and the politicians got scared. What should have been the planned downsizing of the industry never happened. That 20% of the workforce meant a huge number of votes – especially in rural areas – belonging to the ruling LDP party. The politicians themselves were also too used to the amount of kickbacks they were getting to entertain the possibility that this state of affairs couldn’t continue. So, the amount of public money available for construction grew and grew.
What was no longer being built by the private sector was built by national and regional governments with “donations” ending up in the pockets on local administrators, and local populations being saddled with buildings they don’t need. Projects such as flood defences have meant that EVERY river in Japan has been concreted for some part of its length, even in the cases where no flooding had ever happened in living memory. Of course, concrete does not allow for much of an ecosystem to develop, and the results for wildlife have been catastrophic. Mountains haven’t escaped either. They are given concrete frames over them to stop rock slides – imagine the expense of covering a mountain in a concrete lattice! Add to this thousands of culture centers and community buildings that have been built, despite an absence of need, in nearly every village and hamlet in Japan.
The government supplies low-interest loans for these activities, which communities take up only to find that the running costs for these buildings far exceed the amount of money to be made from them – causing a circle of debt to accumulate. The second largest city in the country, Osaka, is so overburdened with these kind of projects that it had to declare bankruptcy, and is now governed by central government. It reckons to be solvent again in 2050! But still the construction industry is not sated.
Local governments receive a set budget every year. A lot of this is earmarked by central government for construction projects whether there is a local need or not. Now here is the rub – if the money is not used, the subsequent amount of money budgeted to that local government will be smaller. There is no incentive to save money… the only way to assure that current levels of budget are retained is to spend everything allotted for a given year. Thus, the white elephants of modern Japan are born – more concrete, more buildings, more running costs for things that people don’t use. More rivers and mountains concreted, more old buildings replaced by concrete boxes.
Japan is looking less and less “Japanese” every year, and governments and regions becoming poorer whilst the bureaucrats and construction companies get wealthier and ever more powerful. Somebody has said it won’t end until the whole country becomes a car park.
Such a shame that everyones’ memories of what was a beautiful country have to be buried beneath it.
Posted by mostlyrawfish 