Environment Concrete jungle: Tokyo's shrinking green spaces

David McNeill on Tokyo's vanishing green retreats.

Sadly, the situation described below is not restricted to Tokyo. Old houses in our area (many of them akiya) are being bulldozed and replaced with prefabricated shells. Their former gardens are being destroyed and concreted over with no regard for the environment. We had a beautiful fruit orchard just ten metres from our house. It's now been partly replaced by a bay of residential buildings, and we wonder how long the remainder of the fruit trees will stand the onslaught of greedy developers.

Our family spent 14 months searching for a home in Tokyo, viewing a succession of depressingly cramped, bunker-like and pricey houses. We settled on our beloved Mitaka partly because it seemed relatively lush and was within walking distance of some of West Tokyo's biggest parks. We discovered that this greening was part of local government policy. I've noticed an unsettling trend, however. Across our neighbourhood, houses are being sold as their elderly owners pass away. The houses are torn down and rebuilt, and their exuberant gardens are paved over. Many plots that once hosted single idiosyncratic homes are being replaced with multiple identical houses, not a tree or lawn in sight. Many urban areas are -- far too late -- concluding that reducing greenery and concreting over land is a very bad idea. It means not just that cities become hotter but that the ground can't absorb heavy rain, bringing more flooding.

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A new report to the London mayor, for example, recommends charging residents who concrete over their gardens.

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I would love to see this implemented in Japan, too.


And:

Among the little oases of green in Tokyo are the shrines that dot every neighborhood, but these, too, are threatened by developers. Cash-strapped temples and shrines are putting land up for sale, often to pay for refurbishments. Over 500 shrines nationwide, including 25 in Tokyo, have just disappeared over the last decade, says the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

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That's exactly what's happening in our neighbourhood of Tokyo. On a nearby plot, where there used to be a single house and a rambling garden, six houses are being built. In addition, the neighbours in the old house to our left, which used to have a garden, sold their house, which was knocked down. A new house was built, but the garden and mature trees were replaced by artificial grass. I can't bring myself to speak to the new neighbours and, in a very Japanese way, I'm hoping my ignoring of them will make them realise their vandalism – they must have noticed that I often chat to my other neighbours and even give them stuff I've grown on my allotment. (Actually, a few sorry-looking plastic plants appeared on the plastic grass a few months ago, so perhaps they're getting the idea.)
The UK has relatively strict laws about new houses being 'in keeping with' the neighbouring ones, but even in the UK there has been a plague of decking and plastic replacing gardens. However, attractive leafy suburbs have been spared the worst of what Tokyo's going through.

As long as Tokyo population continues to grow to the detriment of everywhere else I'm afraid this trend will continue.

mdchachi said:

As long as Tokyo population continues to grow to the detriment of everywhere else I'm afraid this trend will continue.

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I don't think this is so much about the growth of Tokyo, whose population is levelling off, as the increasing unaffordability of houses with gardens for middle-class residents. It's a little comfort to think that there must be vast swathes of Japan reverting to nature with its decrease in population.

I checked a green tract of land decrease in Tokyo and saw it.

According to the site of Tokyo.
A tendency to decrease has the green in Tokyo, but the recent green rate remains at the same level and changes.

• In Tokyo, I promote tree planting in the private enterprise development by structure evaluating an approach of the green creation and maintenance by the development and bring about new green in the city.
  
  In three wards of downtown area that development goes ahead through, green coverage ratio increases. By Takeshiba and Azabudai, the recent large-scale private development including Otemachi, in total 60,000 square meters of Midori is born newly.

The Tokyo environment station
Tree planting plan system
When there are development program or a construction plan at sites more than 1,000 square meters (when on the site that a country and local public entity have 250 square meters) in Tokyo, Tokyo performs "reports of the tree planting plan" and "permission of the development" (regulation of the development by the regulations) (the outside site) based on Article 14 of "regulations about protection and the recovery of nature in Tokyo" (they say the regulations as follows.) and Article 47 (or Article 48).
When they perform new construction, the extension and/or alteration of the building 1,000 square meters or more by the item which does not correspond to regulations Article 47 or Article 48 in the site of (in the site that a country and the local public entity have 250 square meters or more), tree planting more than a site and the constant standard on the building is required, and the company must report the tree planting plan beforehand.

The highest compound facilities "Azabudai Hills" that a one-third was made the green tract of land of the plottage. The plant of 320 kinds is planted, in the open space in the brook [Tokyo site] Tokyo green biz Monday, May 27, 2024 "symbiosis of city and nature"

Lothor said:

That's exactly what's happening in our neighbourhood of Tokyo. On a nearby plot, where there used to be a single house and a rambling garden, six houses are being built. In addition, the neighbours in the old house to our left, which used to have a garden, sold their house, which was knocked down. A new house was built, but the garden and mature trees were replaced by artificial grass. I can't bring myself to speak to the new neighbours and, in a very Japanese way, I'm hoping my ignoring of them will make them realise their vandalism – they must have noticed that I often chat to my other neighbours and even give them stuff I've grown on my allotment. (Actually, a few sorry-looking plastic plants appeared on the plastic grass a few months ago, so perhaps they're getting the idea.)
The UK has relatively strict laws about new houses being 'in keeping with' the neighbouring ones, but even in the UK there has been a plague of decking and plastic replacing gardens. However, attractive leafy suburbs have been spared the worst of what Tokyo's going through.

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If they hate minor yard care so much they install plastic why not get a mansion?

salyavin said:

If they hate minor yard care so much they install plastic why not get a mansion?

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To avoid sharing walls with neighbors.

I suppose you are right. I have certainly heard some interesting things through walls before.