The traditional shopping street in Tokyo as a culturally sustainable and ageing-friendly community

Kien To and Keng Hua Chong

Journal of Urban Design, 2017, vol. 22, issue 5, 637-657

Abstract: This paper reviews the cultural sustainability discourse and discusses how community culture, community cultural capital and the elderly play a key role in helping communities sustain themselves over time. It argues that the elderly are resources, transmitters and multipliers of culture and a key driver in promoting ‘ageing-friendly’ cities. In particular, it investigates how creative, bottom-up urban design and place-making initiatives by the elderly take shape in diverse urban contexts. It takes two traditional shopping streets (shotengai) in Tokyo as case studies and seeks to clarify in the highly-developed, high-density, high-rise, large-scale urban context, how the two low-rise, small-scale shotengai have been sustainable and thriving over centuries; and how community culture and the elderly have played a role in developing and sustaining them. Through urban historical study, site surveys and street interviews, the paper addresses these enquiries and suggests ways to achieve a more ageing-friendly community in an Asian context aiming towards social and cultural sustainability.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1080/13574809.2017.1281734

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