Institutional Setting, Politics and Planning: Private Property, Public Interest and Land Reform in Japan

Abstract

Taking an historical view, the paper considers how Japan has struggled to regulate development and examines the impact of land reform in the immediate post-WWII era. This is seen as a key institutional change that precipitated numerous political and policy shifts in subsequent decades and acted as a critical factor in shaping Japanese land use. The focus of the paper demonstrates how the political and economic transformation of Japan just prior to and after land reform in 1946 led to a situation where successive governments have tried but ultimately failed to intervene successfully in the development process, contributing to unsustainable outcomes derived largely from a sustained period of growth and economic development. In our view, this was supported by the legal framework reinforced under the Allied Occupation (1945–1951), alongside the outcomes of the land reform process. This has also led to a remarkably consistent set of institutional conditions. In order to highlight the impact of land reform the case of Japanese green belt policies between 1927 and 1965 are used to provide a more detailed account of the difficulties that planning and land use regulation has experienced in Japan.

Notes

The 1968 Act gave local authorities the right to legally refuse development for the first time. The subsequent 1980 District Planning Act further strengthened these rights and gave local authorities to power to control the size, location and orientation of buildings and roads. However, development control in Japan is unevenly distributed because of the weakening of the Act. Large areas may not be subjected to the prescriptions of the 1968 Act because they are rural. Similarly, the potentially more prescriptive controls in a district plan are only available as an option and are complex to enforce (Sorensen, 2002). This is in contradistinction to the UK where the definition of development and the ability of planners to control development have been clearly set out and exercisable nationally since the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act.

One feature of Japanese urban areas in the twenty-first century that is bound to strike any Western visitor is the extensive spread of its suburbs with their mixing of land-uses. It is almost impossible to pinpoint precisely where the city begins and where it ends. In the suburbs, which extend almost to the centre of most towns, small apartment blocks with footprints barely larger than a few car parking spaces, vie for space with vegetable plots and paddy fields (Hebbert, 1994; Sorensen, 2001a). During the post-War period, this characteristic pattern of land-use sprawled over the countryside, seemingly unimpeded by planning restrictions.

The Ageo Riot took place when commuters, angered by delayed trains and inadequate responses from station staff smashed train cars and facilities and started a fire. High land prices had forced the Japan Housing Corporation and private developers to build housing beyond the stations served by a frequent commuter service: ‘Thus Ageo, which is two stops beyond Omiya station, became the focal point of contradiction in residential developments without any means of commuter transportation’ (Ishida, 1992:205).

Teruoka (1989) and Tsuru (1993:22) also provide commentaries on the effect of the land reforms on post-War Japanese capitalism highlighting the effect that this reform had on the speculative land-price bubble during the 1980s. While McDonald (1997:66) reviewed how the reforms had altered agricultural structures between 1947 and 1997. Eric Ward's (1990) book on the land reforms in the post-War period and the papers of Wolf Ladejinsky (Walinsky, 1977) provide valuable insights into its implementation, partly because their authors were architects of the reform and provide first-hand accounts along with detailed research.

Although a rudimentary law was first enacted in the same year as the Meiji Constitution (1889), it was replaced by the more systematic Eminent Domain Law in 1900. More detail on the development of eminent domain is provided by Kotaka and Callies (2002).

Land re-adjustment is a technique used to develop land. A number of landowners owning small plots of land in an area will come to an agreement to aggregate their land and develop it for, typically, housing. Some of the land will be given up for roads and other infrastructure. The loss that landowners suffer by giving up some of their land should be adequately compensated for by the rise in land value once the land is developed (see: Sorensen, 1999).

One of the most egregious of these is the mini-kaihatsu. Where land under 1000 m2 is not subject to development control. The traditional land unit, the tan, measures 991.7 m. Reflecting on this Sorensen asks forlornly: ‘why was the system designed so that the majority of the development could avoid its provisions?’ (Sorensen, 2002:238).