Abstract
Redevelopment plans and neighborhood change unfolding in Kamagasaki, Osaka’s declining day labor ghetto, present stark examples of gentrification in contemporary urban Japan. Mayor Tōru Hashimoto (2011–2015) initiated the Nishinari Special Ward Initiative in order to transform Japan’s largest concentration of poverty, homelessness, and welfare recipients, into a destination for families and tourism. Specific decisions about how the neighborhood would change were to be made by the local community through a transparent and inclusive process of community building (machizukuri). A critical juncture in this process involved a series of open meetings with 35 community leaders representing diverse and, in some cases, opposing views, who debated redevelopment decisions. Despite these efforts to be inclusive, the meetings were dominated by representatives of neighborhood associations, nonprofit organizations, labor unions, governmental bodies, and research experts. Ethnographic research in Kamagasaki shows that distancing from this process does not mean residents were indifferent toward changes, but held complex views that varied according to housing stability.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
English Sources
Brown-Saracino, Japonica. 2017. Explicating Divided Approaches to Gentrification and Growing Income Inequality. Annual Review of Sociology 43: 515–539.
Dupuis, Ann, and David C. Thorns. 1998. Home, Home Ownership and the Search for Ontological Security. Sociological Perspectives 46 (1): 24–47.
Freeman, Lance. 2011. There Goes the Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. Consequences of Modernity. Oxford: Polity Press.
Glass, R.L. 1964. London: Aspects of Change. London: MacGibbon & Kee.
Gotham, Kevin Fox. 2005. Tourism Gentrification: The Case of the New Orleans’ Vieux Carre (French Quarter). Urban Studies 42 (7): 1099–1121.
Greene, Theodore. 2014. Gay Neighborhoods and the Rights of the Vicarious Citizen. City & Community 13 (2): 99–118.
Halle, David, and E. Tiso. 2014. New York’s Edge: Contemporary Art, the High Line, and Urban Megaprojects on the Far West Side. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hawkins, Robert L., and Katherine Mauer. 2010. You Fix My Community, You Have Fixed My Life: The Disruption and Rebuilding of Ontological Security in New Orleans. Disasters 35 (1): 143–159.
Hsu, Hsun-Ta, James D. Simon, Benjamin F. Henwood, Suzanne L. Wenzel, and Julie Couture. 2016. Location, Location, Location: Perceptions of Safety and Security among Formerly Homeless Persons Transitioned to Permanent Supportive Housing. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research 7 (1): 65–88.
Lloyd, Richard. 2006. Neo-Bohemia. London: Routledge.
Padgett, Deborah K. 2007. There’s No Place Like (a) Home: Ontological Security Among Persons with Serious Mental Illness in the United States. Social Science and Medicine 64: 1925–1936.
Patillo, Mary. 2007. Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sampson, R.J., S.W. Raudenbush, and F. Earls. 1997. Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy. Science 277: 918–924.
Slater, Tom. 2006. The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30 (4): 737–757.
Snow, David, and Leon Anderson. 1993. Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Zukin, Sharon. 1987. Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core. Annual Review of Sociology 13: 129–147.
Japanese Sources
白波瀬 (Shirahase Tawase). 2017. 貧困と地域:あいりん地区から見る高齢化と孤立死 (Poverty and Neighborhood: Aging and Lonely Death in Airin Chiku). 中公新書 (Chuo Shibo).
鈴木亘 (Suzuki Wataru). 2016. 経済学者日本の最貧困地域に挑む:あいりん改革3年8ヶ月の全記録 (A Economist Takes on a Challenge in Japan’s Poorest Neighborhood: A Three-Year and Eight Month Record of Airin’s Renovation). 東洋経済新報社 (Toyo Keizai Shinho-sha).
鈴木亘 (Suzuki Wataru). 2012. 西成特区構想有識者座談会報告書 (Nishinari Tokku Kousou Expert Meeting Report). 西成区役所 (Nishinari Tokku Kousou). http://www.city.osaka.lg.jp/nishinari/page/0000187570.html.
原口剛 (Haraguchi Takeshi). 2016. 叫びの都市:寄せば、釜ヶ崎、流動的下層労働者 (The Cries of the City: Yoseba, Kamagasaki, and Mobile Underclass Workers). 洛北出版 (Rakuhoku Shuppan).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Marr, M.D. (2020). Gentrification, Machizukuri, and Ontological Insecurity: Bottom-Up Redevelopment and the Cries of Residents in Kamagasaki, Osaka. In: Krase, J., DeSena, J. (eds) Gentrification around the World, Volume I. Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41337-8_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41337-8_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41336-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41337-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)