Aiichiro Mogi Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan

1. Conceiving new urban commons to cope with
aging and depopulating society of Japan in the
21st century
Aiichiro Mogi
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan
1
1st IASC Thematic Conference on the Urban Commons in Bologna
6-7 November 2015

2. Exhibit 1 Outline of today’s topic
1. Aging and depopulating Japan
2. Prevailing phenomena: Unoccupied houses/shops/spaces
3. Causes and Effects
4. Legacy of the past – Need of Change
5. A Case: Marugame-machi Urban Renewal Project
-Rejuvenating central and commercial district
-Points of change
*Separation of right of use of spaces from their ownership
*Community-based development
6. Revisiting Ebenezer Howard’s “Garden City”
7. Discussion for conceiving urban commons
2

3. 3
Exhibit 2 Past Trend and Long-term Projection of the Population in Japan
(Source) Cabinet Office (2014)

4. 4
Exhibit 3 Trend and Projection of the Proportion of Three Major Age Groups in Japan
(Source) NIPSSR(2012)

5. Exhibit 4 Upward trend of rate of unoccupied houses/rooms
5
Tokyo Metropolitan Area 11.3%
Aichi 12.3%
Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo 14.0%
Fukuoka 12.7%
Other Regions 15.0%
All Japan average 13.5%
Trend of the Rate of Unoccupancy
The Rate of Unoccupancy by Regions
(2013)

6. Exhibit 5 The Scene of a Shuttered Street in Japan
6
(Source) A photo of the high street at an anonymous city

7. 7
Exhibit 6 A Diagramatic Plan of Shuttered Street
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
High Street
High streets tended to become out of business and retailing
activities. So-called “shuttered” streets are rampant.
A kind of the tragedy of anticommons happens due to
coordination failure among stakeholders, particularly land owners
(Source) Author’s sketched plan

8. 8
Exhibit 7 Unoccupied houses/shops/spaces: Causes and Effects
NB: Real estate market consists of both flow of new buildings and stocks.
Housing:
Declining birthrate and Aging: Contraction of new demand
Diversified living style and Aging caused mismatches between residential
demand and supply; Continuing supply of new houses.
Irreversibility of social relocation (rural areas to the metropolis) over
generations
Commercial Districts:
Under the economic downturn and towards suburban shift of commercial
centers by large-scale retailing, closing of shops in the high street
shopping area is rampant for the past 20 years in regional cities in Japan.
Effects:
Insecurity, degradation of amenity, shortage of welfare services to aging
population because of weaker community

9. Exhibit 10 Legacy of the past (1)
(Property right regime in Japan)
The right of absolute property ownership (much idealized) has been
secured since establishment of the civil code in 1898.
Through the post-war high-growth period, clinging attitude of holding
lands in the public has been rooted because of continuous
appreciation of land prices.
Sharp decrease of land prices due to economic downturn from the
1990s and the policy of increasing liquidity of property transactions
have made changes in business and society.
Introduction of fixed-term leasehold in 1992 has made a great impact
on the concept of property holding and management.
9

10. 10
Exhibit 11 Legacy of the past (2)
(Structural problems in the post high-growth period)
• Urban development in Japan has been executed under the condition of
high-growth economy with which assumption lasted until 1990s.
• The task in that period was to respond to the population growth in the way
of supporting the city lives of increasing population because of
agglomeration.
• Government provided mostly infrastructural improvements. At the same
time cities have been flourishing under the private initiatives.
• In Japan legal frameworks and regulations are still based on the
assumptions in the past.
What we need now in the urban policy is to overhaul the legal framework to
address unoccupied spaces problem and make it possible to provide services
needed for the elderly, and to utilize dwelling people’s participatory and
community-based inputs to promote such welfare services and to maintain
amenity for the urban life.

11. 11
Exhibit 12 Marugame-machi Urban Renewal Project
It is a formal urban renewal project authorized by public entities (the city and the
central government) .
However, contrary to usual examples of redevelopment project,
Marugame-machi project has the following innovative aspects.
In this project a specific person, Ms Mariko Saigo, joined as a consultant:
1.Saigo and her co-designers are quite deft at planning and designing.
2.Saigo’s way of planning put a stress on (commercial) community-
involvement, rather than just an architectural planning.
3.Saigo conducts workshops of as many times as up to the extent
stakeholders of the district are fully invigorated not only at architectural terms
but also at connected terms with its local values, historical backgrounds, and
industrial liveliness based on regional resources.
More important factor is leadership taken by landowners to promote this
redevelopment.

12. 12
Exhibit 13 Location of Takamatsu City
Takamatsu
City
Kagawa
Prefecture

13. 13
Exhibit 14 The profile of Takamatsu City
Takamatsu City:
the capital city of Kagawa Prefecture
historically a key feudal power point,
facing the Inland Sea of Japan
started from late 16th century
population size: 429,000 (as of 2013)
industry: tertiary industry related with the “branch economy”
wholesaling dominant in Shikoku island
Area: 375.2 km2

14. 14
Exhibit 15 Location of Marugame-machi street in Takamatsu city
Marugame-machi Street
(Source) Author’s arranged map

15. 15
Exhibit 16 Urban Renewal Plan
• Ms Saigo puts principles and practices for realization
• Design
reconstructing the city center in the context of physical/geographical and
historical reasons
having good design codes to be shared
beautiful town scenery
setting residential space not only for existing stakeholders but for new inhabitants
• Industrial strength
branding the city’s lifestyle
• Scheme
coordinating stakeholders’ rights
importance of operating and management entity: “town management company”
finance: funding from several sources including subsidy from public sector as a
formal urban renewal project and outside investments as commercial purpose.

16. 16
Exhibit 17 Separation of right of use of spaces
from their ownership
• More challenging mechanism is adopted so the district as a whole can
resist to the economic difficulty under the leadership and its policy by a
sole “town management company”
• Individual asset holders are to release its ownership to that company in
return for equity holdings of the company.
• Individual sites are leased out at fixed term tenancy.
• The reason of introducing fix-term tenancy comes from the need of
more flexible management adjusting to the economic condition instead
of fixing to landed interests
• Keeping of all such limited spaces for the benefit of all stakeholders is
creating a de facto (local) commons or joint ownership of the spaces.
• Introduction of “town management company” is a strategic tool to
avoid free-riding and reluctant tendency for maintenance of commons
as a system.

17. 17
Exhibit 18 Separation of Use and Ownership
D E F
G H I
J K L
M N O
A B C D E
B and C
(land-
holder's
X (joint investment)
reserved space for
redevelopment
B C D E
A B C D E
A～O and X's fixed-term land leasehold
commercial use residential use
before after
(Source) Author’s sketched diagram
Building
Basing
Ground

18. 18
Exhibit 19 Renewed shopping street (1)
(Source) Photos shot by the author

19. 19
Exhibit 20 Renewed shopping street (2)
(Source) Photos shot by the author

20. 20
Exhibit 21 Renewed shopping street (3)
(Source) Photos shot by the author

21. Exhibit 22 Redevelopment Plan and Collaborative Planning
21
State, Prefecture Upper level plan
Development initiatives
Policies of state and prefectures
City, Town, Village Development Plan 1.Priciples of town planning (shared among stakeholders)
Bounds: City, Town, Village 2.Land use plan
Type: Public support 3.Infrastructural investment
Planning subject: City, Town, Village 4.Urban renewal projects
Exesution: Administration 5.Policies for industrial development
Inhabitants Collaborative Town Planning 1.Norms for town planning
(Citizens) Bounds: Area within which a sense of belonging works 2.Design codes
Type: Communal support 3.Vision
Planning subject: Inhabitants 4.Program
Exesution: Town management company 5.Town management company, articles of corporation
consistency reflection
(Source) Author’s sketched diagram based on Saigo (2013)

22. 22
Exhibit 23 What is urban commons
Urban commons:
park, intense set-up of infrastructure; town scenery, amenity;
urban convenience (including high street)
air of freedom?
what’s different from public goods?
There is no genuine public goods- continuum
Urban commons is supported by the citizen, rather than structure of control.
NB: Urban environment - fluidity, multi-stakeholding
dispersed benefit reception
Urban commons:
indispensable resources/goods for urban lives;
relating to the nature of lives; city lives, aging lives; anonymity;
decency of citizenship, suitable industrial activities in garden city,
husbandry of entrepreneurship, provision of conviviality/arts,
air of freedom?

23. Exhibit 24 Revisiting Ebenezer Howard’s “Garden City”
23
(Source) Howard’s To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898)
Plan of “Social Cities”

24. Exhibit 25 Howard’s Three Magnets
24
(Source) Howard’s To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898)

25. Exhibit 26 The First Garden City: Letchworth, its brief history
25
1. Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) born in London, knighted in 1927
2. (1871) went to Nebraska in the USA, stayed in Chicago
3. (1876) came back to Britain
4. (1898) published “To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform”
5. (1899) founded Garden Cities Association
6. (1902) renamed the previous book and published “Garden Cities of To-Morrow”
7. (1903) First Garden City Limited was created. Letchworth started.
8. (1920) Welwyn Garden City started
9. (1946) New Towns Act was enacted.
10.(1947) Town and Country Planning Act was enacted.
11.(1960) bought by York Hotel
12.(1962) transferred to Letchworth Garden City Corporation (public body)
13.(1965) republished “Garden Cities of To-Morrow, with Osborn’s preface and
Mumford’s introduction”
14.(1995) transferred to Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation (charitable)

26. Exhibit 27 Letchworth
26
(Source) Garden Cities of To-Morrow
The plan of 1920s The city today
(Source) Photos shot by the author

27. 27
Exhibit 28 Letchworth values
Howard’s original concepts of Garden City:
Whole land of the development is held by a ordinary limited company which
was created by a group of people collecting funds through issuing bonds. The
residents could only lease the land from the company. The company would
pay dividends but set a limit of 5%. However the company became profitable,
rest of the profit over dividends would be retained for the investment for the
community.
Evaluation points of the garden city
1. Keeping land with the company complimented by the covenants with
leaseholders can preserve the basic principles.
2. The structure of governance is not public but private, but reflecting
community’s voices.
3. Keeping it an independent and economically viable entity.
4. Creating a co-operative society; serving to the community

28. Exhibit 30 Summary and Discussion (1)
28
• In the near future Japan will have acute aging in the metropolitan
area (Tokyo problem in the middle of this century)
• How to avoid harmful effects of unoccupancy in the city and region
in Japan
• The paper introduces Marugame-machi redevelopment as an
example of rejuvenating central city district with town planning
view point.
• (It is worth referring Howard’s Garden City.)
• The points are:
• 1) separation of right of use of spaces from their ownership
• 2) utilizing a town management company to keep economic
viability of the street.
• Innovative approach and good coordination among stakeholders
through community’s initiatives.

29. Exhibit 30 Summary and Discussion (2)
29
In order to conceive urban commons in Japan, it might not
be universal statement, but we badly need as a
fundamental measure a legal overhaul in the aspect of
urban planning law, laws basing urban institutional
systems, and eventually property law.
For years Professor Igarashi, Japanese lawyer and legal
professor, has proposed the change of Urban Planning Act
and make an effort to enact overarching joint-ownership
(soyu) legislation in the property law area in Japan. Our
huge challenge is who is the subject of such scheme. Not
for profit entity? Trust? Cooperative? Association? Or
company limited? We are seeking such practicality right
now.

30. Thank very much for your attention
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31. The Tragedy of Anticommons
Michael Heller’s proposition (1998)
“… In an anticommons, by my definition, multiple owners are each
endowed with the right to exclude others from a scarce resource,
and no one has an effective privilege of use,
when there are too many owners holding rights of exclusion,
the resource is prone to underuse --- a tragedy of anticommons….”
The tragedy of anticommons goes;
because of a kind of coordination failure,
in which a single resource has numerous rights-holders who prevent
others from using it, frustrating what would be a socially desirable
outcome.
31

32. Full Spectrum of Property –The Tragedies of Commons/Anticommons-
32
Open
Access
(Source) Heller, M.A. (2008), The Gridlock Economy
Heller’s Classification of Resource/Ownership types of Spatial Term
Group Access
=
Commons
Private
Property
Group
Exclusion
Full
Exclusion
=
Anticommons
Zone of Cooperative and
Market-based Solutions

33. Reference (1)
Heller, M.A. (2008), Grid Lock Economy, Basic Books
Howard, Ebenezer (1898), To-morrow A Peaceful Path to Real Reform,
Swan
Sonnenshein & Co., Ltd. (Cambridge University Press, reprinted, 2010).
Howard, Evenezer (902), Garden Cities of To-morrow edited, with a
Preface,
by F.J.Osborn, with an introductory Essay by Lewis Munford, Swan
Sonnenshein & Co., Ltd. (The M.I.T. Press reprinted, 1965).
Igarashi, Takayoshi (2013), “City planning by way of “Soyu
(joint-ownership)” and the problem of vacant space in the city center”
(original in Japanese), Quarterly Machizukuri, No.38.
Miller, Mervyn (2002), Letchworth the First Garden City 2nd ed.
Phillimore.
Mogi, Aiichiro (1994), “Commons in the World” (original in Japanese), in
Uzawa, H. and A. Mogi eds, Social Common Capital –Cities and the
Commons-, University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo.
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34. Reference (2)
Mogi, Aiichiro (2008), “Nature of Commons and its Challenges” in
Learning
from Ancient Hydraulic Civilizations to Combat Climate Change,
Proceedings of the Regional Pugwash Workshop in Honour of Jayantha
Dhanapala, President of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World
Affairs, Sri Lanka Pugwash Group.
Mogi, Aiichiro (2012), “Commons in cities.” (original in Japanese), Seeder
No.7, pp32-39, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto,
Japan.
National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (2012),
Population Projections for Japan (January 2012): 2011 to 2060, NIPSSR.
Ostrom, Elinor (2009), “A General Framework for Analyzing
Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems.” Science 325:419-22.
Schlager, Edella and Elinor Ostrom (1992), “Property-Rights Regimes
and Natural Resources: A Conceptual Analysis.” Land Economics
68(3):249-62.
34

35. Reference (3)
Mogi, Aiichiro (2008), “Nature of Commons and its Challenges” in
Learning
from Ancient Hydraulic Civilizations to Combat Climate Change,
Proceedings of the Regional Pugwash Workshop in Honour of Jayantha
Dhanapala, President of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World
Affairs, Sri Lanka Pugwash Group.
Mogi, Aiichiro (2012), “Commons in cities.” (original in Japanese), Seeder
No.7, pp32-39, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto,
Japan.
National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (2012),
Population Projections for Japan (January 2012): 2011 to 2060, NIPSSR.
Ostrom, Elinor (2009), “A General Framework for Analyzing
Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems.” Science 325:419-22.
Schlager, Edella and Elinor Ostrom (1992), “Property-Rights Regimes
and Natural Resources: A Conceptual Analysis.” Land Economics
68(3):249-62.
35

36. Reference (4)
Saigo, Mariko (2005), “Thorough Analysis: The Urban Renewal of
Takamatsu Marugame-machi －Land, Subject,and Design－”
(original in
Japanese), in Architectural Institute of Japan ed. Vitalization of
Commercial Activities in City Centers and Machizukuri Kaisha
(community-based town management company) , Chapter 8,
Maruzen,
Japan.
Saigo, Mariko (2013), “Revival through the use of Machizukuri Kaisha
(community-based town management company) scheme” (original in
Japanese), in Ohnishi, T., T. Kido, and F. Seta eds. Frontiers of
Town-community Development after the East Japan Great
Earthquake,
Gakugei Shuppansha, Kyoto, Japan.
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