Published in 10+1 magazine, Tokyo in December 15, 2006

Night Shot of Shimokitazawa. Narrow street and dense activity.

Shimokitazawa was preserved from destruction and redevelopment throughout the war right up to our days. As a result the town developed incrementally along its narrow streets retaining a village feel that contributed to making it one of Tokyo’s most popular neighborhoods. Shimokitazawa represents an alternative urban model characterized by low rise buildings, pedestrian space, bustling ground-level market activity, and tight social networks. This model is however challenged by a master plan of the Municipality of Setagaya envisioning a brave new world for Shimokitazawa. The official design is reminiscent of the global generic urbanism predominating in other parts of Tokyo, spreading to many cities around the world. Residents have responded by proposing alternatives to what we might call the “Ikebukurization” of Shimokitazawa, referring to Ikebukuro, one of Tokyo’s standardized, modern neighbourhoods

The case of Shimokitazawa illustrates the classic collision between two models of urbanization which do not have to be mutually exclusive: bottom-up development and top down planning. Emergent megacities in particular, are particularly affected by the increasingly aggressive development agenda of urban governments and the corporate world. Extremely fast economic growth and skyrocketing real estate value in Shanghai and Mumbai, for instance, are putting enormous pressure on the urban heritage. It is said that no historical neighborhood remains at the center of Shanghai. In Mumbai dreams of modernity are filled with high-rise buildings, and vernacular architecture is disregarded as an expression of backwardness. First world megacities such as New York, Paris and London however, have for long acknowledged the value of urban landmarks which has resulted in extensive historic preservation. Japan traditionally puts much less value on its urban heritage, prefering the new to the old. Historical preservation, however is not as much about architecture as it is about culture.   Indeed, Shimokitazawa is a cultural landmark. It is a complex urban ecosystem where physical form and culture merge producing unique urban patterns. These patterns develop over time; they cannot be designed from scratch, but can be easily destroyed. What is sometimes described as urban mess and incoherence in Shimokitazawa, is actually an alternative order that should be recognized, respected, preserved and nurtured. In one of her most famous quote, Jane Jacobs states that there “is a quality meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.” What is true for urban ghettos is also true for grown up neighborhoods like Shimokitazawa.

Urban mess and incoherence or alternative order?

The urbanism of Shimokitazawa characterized by narrow pedestrian streets and dense commercial activity, gives the area a deep Tokyo feel. Newcomers, attracted by the relaxed character and communal atmosphere of Shimokitazawa, live alongside old-timers who have seen the neighborhood change throughout the years. In an interview recorded by Save the Shimokitazawa, a community group opposing the master plan, an African shop owner explains that what attracted him to Shimokitazawa was a feeling of “old-Japan” which he did not encounter in any other part of Tokyo. In Shimokitazawa the future meets the past.  Shimokitazawa is an urban experience and a space of cultural expression enjoyed by a colorful crowd from Tokyo and the rest of the world. Countless speciality shops, restaurants and bars animate the area day and night. It is the favorite destination of sophisticated vintage shoppers, record collectors, musicians, artists, students, freelancers, lovers, and other creative types. The “Shimokitazawa experience” is a lifestyle rather than a fashion-style. Indeed the area has served as an “incubator” for many Japanese artists and musicians. Its famous residents include the musicians Keiichi Sokabe, Hiroto Khomoto, Mayumi Kojima, the writers Sakutaro Hagiwara, Ango Sakaguchi, Riichi Yokomitsu (as well as prime minister Eisaku Yoshida, and minister Noboru Takeshita).

Street market the anti-department store.

Shimokitazawa is 7 minutes away by train from Shibuya and Shinjuku, two of the most important hubs in Tokyo. Everyday, hundreds of thousands of people commute through Shimokitazawa. Around the commercial core spread upper-middle class residential neighborhoods. Shimokitazawa has become a brand-name and a very hot real estate market. Therefore, some investors see great opportunity in the development of new department stores and luxury residential buildings. The master plan of the Municipality of Setagaya accommodates this vision. In the plan, the station is turned into a multi-stories high building hosting stores and restaurants, like in so many other parts of Tokyo. Odakyu also plans on depressing the Odakyu line [i], freeing much needed space at the surface. More controversially, a section of the 1946 “War damage revival plan” envisioning a 26-meter wide road (originally 20 meters) passing through the North of Shimokitazawa was resurrected and expended. This road project is known as Route 54. The original planner, Hideaki Hishikawa, would probably be stunned to know that the plan he drafted under the American post-war administration 60 years ago is now being implemented in a completely different context.

Planned Route 54: The global generic vision for Shimokitazawa.

So what is the rationale behind Route 54? The Government of Setagaya gives two reasons for digging this plan out of the grave: safety and traffic congestion. Firstly, they argue, in case of earthquake or fire, Route 54 would provide an emergency lane. It is however not clear why this suddenly became a priority for Shimokitazawa, when hundreds of neighborhoods throughout Tokyo are under the same threat. Nonetheless, an access for evacuation and emergency vehicles can hardly be argued against, but does it really need to be 26 meters wide? The second reason, traffic congestion, is even less credible. The Government claims that according to a study it conducted, Route 54 is needed to improve traffic flow. The study however is not available to the public and its conclusions have been contested by independent planning and transportation experts. In any case, the refusal of the Municipal Government to open the discussion with the concerned population has raised serious doubts about the real motives behind the plan. This lead many people to feel that the master plan is serving the interests of the real estate and construction lobby, more than these of the residents. Indeed, according to the ‘Building Standard Law’, the building height is relative to the width of the road along which it is built. Route 54 will authorize developers to build 60 meter high buildings, which is about 4 to 6 times higher than the average building height in Shimokitazawa at present.

The Master Plan of Setagaya-ku.

The issue is not only the plan, but also the whole planning process. Residents’ groups say that that Government has systematically refused to meet them. One of them, Save the Shimokitazawa (STSK), points out that although a few public hearings were organized, (as required by the law) they only served as a venue for the Government to present its plan without even answering the residents’ questions [ii].  The community groups that emerged as a result of the government plan initiated a series of public consultations, produced a series of alternative plans  and, in the process, innovated in the field of grassroots community participation. They sent letters, organized concerts, demonstrations, carnivals, candle light sittings, symposia, workshops, studios, and proposed alternative plans. STSK says that despite all their efforts, they were never heard by the mayor or any representative in Setagaya or Tokyo. Many urban experts and academics, including former senior members of the government, have said loud and clear that the Route 54 is not necessary and that it would be a cultural disaster for Tokyo[iii].

That doesn’t mean that Shimokitazawa should stop evolving. Quite on the contrary, to stay itself it has to adapt to the changing context of Tokyo. Even community groups strongly opposing the current master plan, recognize that things are not perfect as they are. The problem with the plan, they say, is that it does not actually acknowledge the community. They do not demand the status quo but rather a new plan involving the public. Shimokitazawa Forum, a resident group, distributed a questionnaire to thousands of residents. 81% of the respondents think that Setagaya-ku should have a roundtable with local people about the plan.   More than ten alternative plans were drafted by various constituencies. For instance, in 2005, a Harvard Graduate School of Design plan proposed to combine Route 54 with the Odakyu line being depressed. The road would be below ground and thus preserve the area above. This would cost tax payers much less than buying prime real estate above ground, and the Shimokitazawa would be preserved. But it would not satisfy the people set to benefit directly from the road project in the form of construction contracts, real estate deals, political donations and so on.

Youth culture meets tradition in Shimokitazawa.

The complete opacity of the planning process makes it difficult to grasp where exactly the decision-making power rests. In any case the ultimate responsibility for the master plan weights on the shoulders of the Mayor of Setagaya, who claims not to know much about the plan, which is, sadly, probably true. In all likelihood, the plan was drafted by the central planners of the Metropolitan Government of Tokyo and sent for formal approval to the Municipal Government of Setagaya, which has ultimate authority on it. Setagaya then had to request funding and approval from the Metropolitan Government, which it just received in October 2006. The construction cost will probably be shared by the National Government, the Metropolitan Government, and the Municipality. The Municipality started buying the land along Route 54, a process which is likely to take a few years, especially since some landowners have made clear that they will refuse to sell their estate to the government.  In plus of being opaque and unaccountable, it seems that both the Tokyo Government and the Setagaya Government are failing to fulfill their promises. In its 2025 Urban Development Plan the Metropolitan Government of Tokyo,  set as a goal “Greater transparency of the process by which decisions are made by having the administration be more accountable from the initial planning stage, employing PI [Public Involvement] -type methods, strengthening resident participation, and so on”[iii]. The Municipality of Setagaya too, states as one of its five main goals for its 10 year plan a “community that the city’s residents create”, through “cooperative community development”[vi]. Reality could not be further away from rhetoric.  In this grey landscape, the community groups represent a true source of hope. They have shown that residents can come together and think collectively about their urban environment. This stands in sharp contrast with the cynicism of political representatives and greed of the construction lobby. Recently for instance, two of the main community groups in Shimokitazawa, organized a design workshop called “Urban Typhoon” with the help of the University of Tokyo and students from various universities. It was attended by more than 130 participants from all over the world. Many ideas were generated and the material produced will be published as a book in the coming year. In Shimokitazawa, grassroots movements leads the way towards inclusive and responsible urban planning. It is time for urban authorities to recognize that involving residents is a great opportunity put collective intelligence at the service of planning.

The Urban Typhoon Workshop, which took place in June 2006 with more than 130 participants from all over the world.

[i]  http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/INET/OSHIRASE/2004/03/20e3n400.htm
[ii] Save the Shimokitazawa & Shimokitazawa Forum are two of the most active residents groups in Shimokitazawa.
[iii] Experts and academics who have denounced the master plan include Kei Minohara former official of the Planning Department of the Ministry of Construction, Masami Kobayashi, Professor of urban design at Meiji University and visiting Professor at Harvard University, Peter Rowe former Dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.
[vi] http://www.toshiseibi.metro.tokyo.jp
[v] http://www.city.setagaya.tokyo.jp/topics/bunkoku/outline/plan.pdf

more info:

www.stsk.net
www.urbantyphoon.com
www.shimokitazawa-forum.net

Almost all the analyses of the recent financial crisis, that started in the US but pretty much affects most of the world, lays the blame on the recklessness of financial institutions, miscalculation of value and the basic problems endemic to the act of speculation itself. Political critiques blame the US squarely for riding on a credit-based economy that asserted itself in the Reagan era and more or less set crazy standards for financial institutions everywhere.

Some even blame the emergence of stock market software and the spread of the web as a prime mover of financial opaqueness that eventually grew to monstrous proportions. You could shave profits off stock – markets situated across time zones calculated at fractions of seconds and make capital theoretically available for investment in any which way to anyone, anywhere in the world – for a price calculated on the cost of communication and not on concrete value.

However – at the end of the day you can’t really blame the logical extension of manipulating economic interests to its extreme, using technology or whatever, as long as the systems in place support the broad logic – of making profits. But sometimes, even in the toughest of capitalist skin, there is feeling. Especially if you find yourself hacking at the very branch that you are sitting on. That’s when it makes sense to say that the profit logic needs some qualification.

However, such a qualification should well apply to all dimensions of the game. If financial institutions need to become more transparent, if governments need to be a tad more intrusive, if credit has to become more sensibly priced then value too needs to be evaluated critically.

The heart of the problem does lie at the question of real value. We find it difficult to believe that most analysts skip over this issue or make fleeting mention before going back to blaming old demons – laissez faire on one hand and bad fiscal management by the state on the other – even though these may well be symptoms than the real causes.

The fact is that speculation around real – estate, as a specific mode of speculation and transforming value follows quite distinct rules. It is at once related to concrete, quantifiable assets as it is to asserting an abstract value around these assets by changing the terms of its supply and demand. In other words, you can always claim legitimacy for the act of construction even when there is no real market. You can simulate demand quite literally when none exists – based on a different kind of projected speculation – in the hope that people will keep exchanging, moving up, aspiring towards better lifestyles. That governments will always invest in improving infrastructure, so on and so forth. While this applies to all basic acts of consumption (and we can see the effects of this on other realms of our lives – environmental degradation, the expensive business of waste disposal), the specific way in which this happens in the realm of construction needs to be isolated.

The industry’s ability of evaluating terms based not on real needs but on an abstract sense of general needs is a special mode of simulating demand. We are told we need buildings, roads, infrastructure and homes. Since no one actually questions that – these general needs can be evoked to raise and justify investments and capital re-cycling without it tallying with the ground level needs in real terms. In an advanced economy such as the US – the crisis was triggered off by an over-supply that pushed down the value of mortgages making the interest rates redundant. What’s happening in China is slightly different. The building and construction industry has been investing in the name of abstract and general needs and borrowing heavily from a financial market that has lost its focus behind the frenzy of globalized speculation. But the effects will be more or less the same. A major crisis of credit.

The fact is that the construction industry has played a crucial but largely ignored and even invisible role in producing a fog around the idea of value, credit and financial investment while muddying the waters extensively on the ground.

In many parts of the world – housing has been framed as a need to be financed and supplied by construction companies with massive access to capital. Construction companies have built cities afresh or re-built and destroyed habitats without paying any attention to the way in which the configuration of real needs of people, their livelihoods, ability to pay have been factored in sensibly.

Yet – their role is never in the forefront of discussions and debates. Once more the world of built-form is relegated to being the stage in which dramas take place, the context in which life is lived, an invisible casing in which capitalism operates. In reality, built-forms, as Linda Clarke informs us in ‘Building Capitalism’ are themselves production sites. Cities are living financial worlds that produce, consume, exchange and re-arrange resources of labour, capital and the environment and have been doing that for centuries.
Its like discovering that the inanimate world of rocks are actually living breathing entities that wield a massive influence on people living in their proximity.

These world makers have always worked from behind the scenes – fully supported by the local kings, aristocratic lords or the religious elite.

Today, they are the hidden arbitrators of a certain kind of value that energizes one significant part of the market.

Its easy to blame specific acts of mismanagement, the ability of technology to create confusion or pass judgments on entire ideologies by completely ignoring this point. Something similar happened during the Cold-war. While the world was quibbling over grand narratives of capitalism and communism; builders, engineers, construction companies and architects flowed easily through iron curtains and concrete walls in the name of being neutral agents.

We are only building, creating, doing good – they would smile, we are not quite ideological.

Yet they had immense powers to channelize huge resources in the name of development and construction. In countries like India – they built massive cities in the name of modernization while most urban enclaves lost their traditional skills and legitimate rights to make their own homes to eventually get transformed into degraded infrastructure deprived environments, quickly labeled slums.

In rich countries, their ability of creating general needs – redefining what makes modern lifestyles and spawning a whole new industry by creating and destroying habitats ensured that they constantly borrowed, made profits and moved on to new territories. Their economies were elegantly constructed on building and borrowing.

Eventually – when simple laws of economics kicked into place – when supply over stripped demand in some quarters, it tripped the whole system.

Unfortunately there is enough reason to believe that they will get away scot-free once again – while regimes will contain and control and regulate the market in other ways.

Published in October 2008 issue of Indian Architect & Builder

A view of Geneva.

In the global imagination, Switzerland often represents an ideal society. One in which Italo Calvino would find quite a few cities morphing into picture perfect post cards. Switzerland is at once globally competitive and domestically redistributive, in tune with nature and well protected against its excesses, rooted in its culture, yet cosmopolitan and technologically advanced. Swiss cities are well planned, compact and sensibly connected to the countryside. Politically, they are models of participatory democracy, with cantonal (district wise) and municipal governments administering local affairs and overseeing urban development. Switzerland attracts successful people from all over the world, particularly in the fields of business, research and diplomacy. Many choose to settle in Switzerland because of its comfortable scale, charming landscapes, and well maintained cities.

At the same time, Switzerland is known for its aversion to anything that threatens the status quo. While in India change these days is often considered synonymous with economic growth and rising living standards, in Switzerland it is associated with risk and a possible reduction in the quality of life. It is extremely difficult for the young generation to innovate in Switzerland. Soaring birds, especially if they are rebellious and creative, have to fly far from their nest in order to live up to their potential and aspirations. For them leaving the middle ground often means simply going away.

Vineyards on the coast of the Leman Lake in the Canton of Vaud, next to Geneva.

Genève, the French speaking Swiss city at the end of the Leman Lake, is truly open. It is funky and literally flexible with it multiple formal boundaries (the city, the canton and a part of the lake). Commuters come to it everyday from neighbouring France and nearly forty percent of its residents are not native. The city emerged in the European imagination during the 15th century, with its famous international fairs making it a hub on the ancient trade routes leading to the Mediterranean Sea. These trade fairs were economic and cultural events that brought in thousands of traders and merchants to this francophone city. The fairs were open, vibrant and significant urban moments that shaped its famous banking institutions and inaugurated its destiny as a global city.

Genève derives much of its force from this historical openness to the world. Culturally it appears amazingly rich. It has all the museums, cultural centres, art galleries and operas it needs.

Day long “disaster” installation in front the Grütli House, a heavily subsidised cultural centre in Geneva.

Yet, so many young arts practitioners acknowledge that something crucial is missing. The city hardly allows homegrown innovators and creators to survive. A truly creative city cannot just depend on its formal cultural infrastructure. That may produce a well educated audience, but one needs more than spectators to make for a truly creative city. One needs free actors who can experiment and express themselves without constraint. One needs affordable spaces for them to function as such. And it is here that the city fails to oblige.

A truly creative city must allow creative destruction of the status quo, especially when it is driven from within. It must have spaces that allow freedom and encourage the ability to take real risks for its emerging generation of practitioners. These are things that cannot be part of the formal cultural systems. Genève may support its most successful artists and creators through grants and other institutional arrangements. Subsidies from the national government also make themselves available to a handful of movie producers and musicians who depend on them. However, these are just not enough when free spaces for self-expression are being shut down.

Until very recently Geneva had its own version of the great European cultural practice of squatting. Squatting is something that one never thinks of in the context of Europe, let alone Switzerland. However the European squat movement was responsible for the cultural effervescence of cities like Paris in the 1970s, Copenhagen in the 1980s, Barcelona in the 1990s and Berlin in the 2000s. Similarly, Genève had several squats that provided cheap shelter for students, artists, nomads and other free spirits.

The site of Artamis in Geneva was squatted by artists, designers and musicians. The site is now being redeveloped and the occupants have be relocated elsewhere in the city.

To the Asian reader, the word squat usually evokes informal settlements built by poor immigrants on public land. In Europe squatting basically describes the occupation of an abandoned structure by a group of young people who cannot afford to rent a regular apartment. The degree of tolerance towards this practice varies from one country to the other. In the Netherlands squatting is authorized in any building that has not been used for over a year. This guarantees an optimum use of space in an urban context where it is scarce. Until recently, in Genève, an owner had to show a rehabilitation project for its property before the police could evacuate squatters.

Squats thus provided a natural habitat for those who could not afford formal housing or working space. It was an indirect subsidy from property owners to artists and creators who would not have been able to do their art if they had to work full time to pay their rent.

Artamis Summer 2008.

Genève use to have a fairly tolerant attitude towards squats. Many of them had activities open to the public such as art galleries, theatres, concerts, bars, and restaurants. These constituted a point of connection between the squatters and the public. They functioned as incubators and breeding ground for artists, writers, musicians, designers and so on. A whole generation of local creators emerged from the squats.

In the past few years a sharp rise in property prices and the rise of a new brand of political conservatism in Europe has unleashed a huge backlash against squats and squatters. The laws have changed and now the owner doesn’t need to present any plan for rehabilitation. The attitude of the authorities in Genève has changed, and squatting is no longer tolerated. Almost all the squats have closed down forcing many out of the city.

Ironically this happens just at the time when new ideas about the ‘creative class’ are spreading in universities, planning departments and the political arena. According to the proponents, the new urban elite is highly mobile and creative. In an economic context where innovation is vital to the conservation and conquest of new markets, cities must compete to attract and retain creative people. The creative class wants lively cities with a lively and inspiring cultural scene that multiplies networking opportunities and stimulates imagination.

Various murals and right above the Shark bar in Artamis .

Unfortunately, this idea is more often than not misinterpreted by policy makers to mean an investment in formal cultural infrastructure. It becomes an excuse for more construction-based projects to create new physical spaces such as galleries, museums and formal performing arenas. This in turn makes cities more expensive and actually pushes the creative class (except for a handful of successful, rich and corporate dependent practitioners) outside the city.

Today, Swiss artists are leaving to Berlin, Buenos Aires, Shanghai or Mumbai in search of places where they can afford to be creative. And Genève is increasingly becoming a bankers’ or tax evaders city. A beautiful postcard that strives to preserve its cute image for the greatest pleasure of Saudi, Japanese and Indian tourists.

In many ways Genève symbolizes what is happening in other parts of the world. City authorities are fetishizing art and cultural spaces while outlawing spaces where creators and innovators can survive.

Eventually, the architecture of construction always wins. It is more lucrative, even though unnecessary. While what is really needed, an architecture of improvisation, an architecture that is inspired by the history and practice of squatting, of re-use, adaptation, and innovation.

In contrast to the Swiss city, the Indian urban landscape is a peculiar place right now. In some ways it reflects similar global processes while in others it manages to allow for genuine creativity to unfold. Especially in its vast swathes of informal settlements or in its historical small towns cracking open their shells, coming into their own. These are the spaces that are starting to attract the global adventurer artist, seeking to escape his slick, expensive and closed world.

Squats, East and West, are places of innovation where alternatives to the global standard emerge. They are hyper-local urban spaces that policy-makers, urbanists and architects should respect, understand and support. In essence we must recognize that a city must not only be open to the outside world, it must also allow inner forces to drive cultural innovation and social change.