156 Terada, Yokohari, and Amemiya
These agro-activities function as a common prescription for the typical ailments
suffered by many cities, such as increased environmental burden resulting
from excess concentration of population, weakening of the local community
resulting from the concentration of individuals without any previous social ties,
deterioration of the biological environment due to the concentration of man-made
structures, and discrimination and social exclusion in multi-ethnic countries. We
can interpret the simultaneous increase in the popularity of urban agriculture in
New York, Tokyo, and many other large cities around the world as a marker of the
universal appeal of such practices. At the same time, the various agro-activities
that have arisen in cities around the world are often inflected by relatively unique
local and national cultural, social, political, and economic concerns.
In this chapter, using urban-agriculture’s polar characteristics of universality
and uniqueness as key concepts, we develop a broad view of agro-activities in
Japan and the urban spaces in which they take place. It might appear that local
uniqueness and the culture from which it originates is something ephemeral and
difficult to grasp. However, it is also something that is manifested in part in the
behavior and values of the people living in that society. As such, in the first part
of this chapter, we focus on the way in which urban farming in Tokyo has become
associated with “classic but novel” concepts, values and practices related to work
and lifestyle in Japan’s modern society, concepts of play-work that can be seen
as complex manifestations of both global shifts in urban living and uniquely
Japanese values and lifestyles. Next, we examine how this is related to the
practice of urban agro-activities in present-day Japan and thereby seek to identify
the unique qualities of urban farming in Japan (Figure 11.1). In the second half
of the chapter, we explore the urban spaces in which these urban agro-activities
are carried out. How has modern city planning, which could be said to represent a
universal model for urban space, been implemented in Japan, and what has been
the consequence? In addition, what are the present-day challenges facing city
planning, and how are these related to urban agro-activities? Finally, we propose
a future direction for Tokyo based on agro-activities.
Intermingled work and play
Among Asian countries, Japan is an advanced post-industrial society, undergoing
certain ideological shifts in relation to industrialism, environmentalism, and
working and living practices. The Japanese-style employment system of the past,
as a general rule, promised lifetime employment and seniority-based promotion.
In return for these guarantees, employees accepted long working hours. This
employment system was able to support Japan’s rapid economic growth in the
post–World War II period by emphasizing quantitative expansion (Kawaguchi and
Ueno 2013). However, in a contemporary Japan in which people’s needs have
diversified and happiness is not necessarily defined solely on the basis of economic
satisfaction, the erstwhile employment model under this employment system still
functions but is considered a thing of the past. Within Japanese society, there is a
growing emphasis on quality of life and on being able to design one’s own lifestyle,