162 Terada, Yokohari, and Amemiya
posit that agro-activities are a suitable lifestyle based on the new value system,
then we can reevaluate the intermingling of cities and farms as being a positive
circumstance for the implementation of such activities. In the same way that the
antithetical concepts of play and work can be fused without contradiction in play-
work, we must return to a Japanese way of thinking and consider the possibility
of cities and farms coexisting without contradiction.
Revitalization of cities through agro-activities
In certain respects, the shrinking of cities may further promote mixed use of
land. This is because the decline in demand for residential land accompanying
the decline in population will result in the emergence of vacant lots, which, on
the macro-scale, will begin in the less convenient peripheral areas of cities but,
on the local scale, will occur in a disordered fashion, resulting in scattered vacant
lots. In Japan, where the population is already starting to decline and the housing
supply is already saturated, it is easy to imagine that, once a property becomes
vacant, no new buildings will be constructed, and the property will remain vacant
over the long-term. Furthermore, it is expected that the number of such vacant
lots will continue to increase (Policy Research Institute for Land, Infrastructure,
Transport and Tourism 2012). If such property is not used for anything and simply
left abandoned, it can only contribute to a net external diseconomy and have a
negative impact on the surrounding community. Detroit, which experienced an
economic collapse after its population was nearly halved due to the restructuring
of industry and whose abandoned lots and houses have become a hotbed of
criminal activity, is a prime example of what can happen (Steinmetz 2009).
Would it not be possible to reinvent such vacant lots, which will emerge in
large numbers and interspersed among urban areas, into gardens where agro-
activities can be carried out? One model for the implementation of agro-activities
in vacant lots is small-scale vegetable production and consumption (Grewal and
Grewal 2012; Hara et al. 2013; Drake and Lawson 2014). In this model, vacant
lots in a residential area would be transformed into small-scale farms, where the
nearby residents would grow vegetables that they themselves would consume. In
Japan, there is a concept of Chisan-Chisho (local production, local consumption)
whereby food produced in a certain area is also consumed in that area (Kimura
and Nishiyama 2007; Kurita, Yokohari, and Bolthouse 2009). In the sense that
food would be produced and consumed by the same people, farming in vacant
lots could be considered a “self-production, self-consumption” activity (Coyne and
Knutzen 2010; Deppe 2010). In a context in which problems related to large-scale
agricultural production such as pesticide residue are repeatedly taken up by media,
such self-production, self-consumption also enables people to grow and consume
their own produce without any worry. Furthermore, in a country such as Japan
that frequently experiences natural disasters such as flooding and earthquakes, the
embedding of a system in local space for producing one’s own food, however
small the volume may be, can be effective as a safety net when the food supply
chain is temporarily interrupted due to disaster. In fact, many Tokyo residents