Layers of reconstruction: the planning history of disaster-prone Kamaishi

Naoto Nakajima

Planning Perspectives, 2024, vol. 39, issue 1, 109-129

Abstract: Kamaishi in Iwate Prefecture has suffered devastating damage on several occasions, including the 1896 Meiji Sanriku tsunami, the 1933 Showa Sanriku tsunami, the 1945 naval bombardment during W.W. II and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Each time, the city has recovered. This paper explores the history of reconstruction planning and urban development in Kamaishi and how the city’s landscape and urban space have been shaped by disaster and reconstruction. In the Kamaishi area in modern times, temples, shrines and public facilities have been moved and new infrastructure has been developed repeatedly, after each disaster. The accumulated reconstructions have generated a landscape in which the city is centred on wide streets that form a vertical axis connecting the coast and the highlands. The need to evacuate has been woven into the urban space of Kamaishi through repeated experiences of disaster and reconstruction. In the reconstruction that took place after the Great East Japan Earthquake, new layers and facilities were added for commercial recovery and residential reconstruction, but the underlying intention was to build a network of evacuation routes.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02665433.2023.2217425 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rppexx:v:39:y:2024:i:1:p:109-129

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rppe20

DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2023.2217425

Access Statistics for this article

Planning Perspectives is currently edited by Michael Hebbert

More articles in Planning Perspectives from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().