Japan's defeat marked the end of World War II. The country was devastated due to wartime bombing. However, with the help of the United States, Japan experienced a rapid recovery. In 1950, Japan had already entered the era of “high-speed growth” and is currently the world's third largest economic power. This unprecedented speed of development has meant rapid urbanization of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Has the population quadrupled from 3.5 million in 1945 to nearly 14 million today, making Tokyo the most populous metropolis in the world? The purpose of this essay is to study Tokyo's urban development from post-war developments to the present day, examining how culture and politics have played a role in transforming Tokyo from post-war devastation to the urban giant we all recognize today. The first part of the essay will delve into Japanese consciousness, focusing on how religion has influenced the Japanese lifestyle and how urban spaces are created. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The second part of the essay will examine Tokyo's urban planning policies and their effects on Tokyo's current urban conditions and quality of life. Tokyo is an intensely overwhelming city. It seems to never end, to expand endlessly no matter which direction you look. The buildings are densely constructed seemingly without any regulations; structures are clustered together with colorful neon signs, symbols and billboards plastered everywhere, sometimes completely hiding the building; as crowds of shoppers and businessmen rush to and from major train stations. This is the chaotic urban reality of Tokyo, which appears to be similar to cities in other developed countries with equal levels of urbanization and well-being. But Tokyo is also a city rich in tradition, hidden beneath the chaos and confusion. This duality is what makes Tokyo so fascinating to learn about. Botond Bognar proposed that this urban chaos is caused as much by the rapid progress of consumer society as by traditional Japanese beliefs and cultural traditions. To understand Tokyo, we must start by looking at its culture. Raymond Williams defined culture as “the process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development of a people”. This essay will mainly focus on the spiritual development of the Japanese people. Throughout history, Japan's indigenous religion is Shinto and has been considered by many to be the foundation of Japanese culture. It developed with influences from Taoism, Confucianism and especially Buddhism. The ideas of both Shinto and Buddhism were incorporated into the spiritual life of each believer. Buddhism perceives mutability as one of the fundamental truths of nature. Nothing in nature is ever static, nature is dynamic and constantly changing. Making this idea its own, Shinto promoted the harmonious relationship between man, nature and gods. The Japanese have learned to live with nature and constant change through this school of thought. Isozaki identified the Japanese view of life as jinen (nature), “an attitude of letting the natural process of becoming decide its own course, that is, intuiting the course of nature and following it.” He proposed that this was "Japanness". Traditional Japanese buildings were made of perishable, lightweight materials and often had to be modified, rebuilt, or moved. An example of this would be the constant demolition and reconstruction of the sanctuaryShinto every 20 years. It is a ritual practice to reaffirm community and spiritual bonds, while ensuring that the craftsman's skills are passed down from generation to generation. It is a symbol of change but also of continuity. Even ordinary buildings in Tokyo have had to be repeatedly rebuilt due to the history of repeated natural disasters. Huge fires destroyed parts of the city in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the 1923 earthquake and fire nearly leveled the city, and wartime bombing nearly halved the population. Despite being reduced to rubble and ash, Tokyo revived again and again, undefeated. Of course, this endless cycle of birth and rebirth is one of the most important essences in Buddhist beliefs. Yoshinobu Ashihara portrays and compares Tokyo to living organisms, initially calling it the "amoeba city", it is constantly changing and urban development resembles the pulsating and moving body of the organism. If damaged in one region, it regenerates again in another. The Japanese people's attitude towards embracing nature and respecting its changes is strongly reflected in how people view their urban environments. For them, each part of the city represents the whole, without a clear center or focal point. All parts of the city are equally important and superfluous. This is in turn reflected in the way Tokyo has ended up developing in a way that no city in other countries has ever experienced. Ashihara again compared Tokyo's urban expansion process to a silkworm devouring a mulberry leaf, without a clear direction or master plan, slowly but surely taking over the surrounding countryside. The final form of Tokyo is very unstable, without definitive contours. Vladimir Krstic commented on this special feature of Tokyo's development: "it developed without any apparent concept of its totality." This is in clear contrast to the way cities have generally developed in the West, where planners begin by identifying the city as a unitary entity, with clear boundaries and a clear urban center, and then proceed to its parts . However, for Ashihara there is a “hidden order” in this chaotic urban environment, and because of this, Tokyo's large population is able to live in relative harmony. He proposed that Mandelbrot's concept of a "flexible ordered structure that embraces randomness" is how Tokyo manages to function, where each level of this structure has a certain tolerance for randomness so that changes in the environment can be absorbed – just like the way genes work in the development of a multicellular organism. The city is constantly changing and developing. Ashihara's depiction of Tokyo as organic entities portrays not only how urban developments follow the Buddhist idea of ​​the mutability of nature, but also draws parallels with the Buddhist belief of the "transience of all things". Isozaki suggested how cultural-historical events contributed to these urban qualities of modern Tokyo, where the city center remained vague and the city boundaries still undefined. He noted that throughout history Tokyo's community events were never fixed, street markets, festivals and religious rituals were all temporary events that occurred in vague areas. Isozaki points out that this feature could derive from the way traditional rituals are performed to invite the gods. A himorogi is a ritual device built temporarily to invite the gods, during the ritual the evergreen Sakaki tree is set up for the gods to enter, and after the ritual everythingis removed, leaving no trace behind. This type of space can be created anywhere, and Isozaki argues that this laid the foundation for the way Japanese people accept spaces as temporary and transitory. Ashihara highlights how Japanese lifestyle is another factor that influences how Japanese people perceive urban spaces. In a traditional Japanese house, the main focus is on the floor rather than the walls, interior walls are rarely solid, and most spaces are divided with sliding, removable panels. This gave the Japanese home a flexibility that profoundly influenced the Japanese way of life. The interior spaces are multifunctional and not dedicated to a specific activity, giving it a fluid quality. Ashihara suggests that this is what led the Japanese people to disengage in their beliefs and behaviors, as the Japanese have always viewed traditional housing as, to some extent, temporary. This explains Tokyo's constantly changing cityscape, with most of its buildings having a short lifespan. When a building becomes obsolete, the Japanese people will immediately build a more efficient one in its place without hesitation. There is no point in holding on to something that has completed its original function, Buddhism has taught us that life itself is transitory. and therefore Tokyo is a city without memory. Buddhism perceives mutability as one of the fundamental truths of nature. The second part of the essay will examine the different factors that contribute to how Tokyo's urban planning policies have failed to prioritize the social needs of Tokyo residents in terms of public interest, and how this has affected the urban development of Post-war Tokyo. To an inexperienced observer, the entire Tokyo metropolitan area would seem too chaotic and crowded to live in. Until 1992 there were no regulations restricting the subdivision of land, landowners were free to divide their land freely. This has caused the disorderly appearance of Tokyo, where the mixing of different land uses prevails. However, just a stone's throw from the busy centres, quiet neighborhoods hide behind the main road. This has generated a clear duality in Tokyo, where the "front" (plus) side can present a "characterless" city, where the ultimate purpose of consumption has taken over all meanings and values, making Tokyo just like any another consumer-oriented city where everything is transformed into a commodity. However, hidden behind this, the “behind” side (a), presents a completely opposite vibe. Small shops and houses lined narrow streets, low wooden buildings created a welcoming and comfortable space, with restrictions on cars created an exceptionally livable city. stable, close-knit communities, combined with vibrant city spheres, have made Tokyo a perfect example of Jane Jacob's conception of healthy city life. This fascinating character of Tokyo city life presented the best aspect of its urbanization process, where the contribution of urban planning to its development and maintenance was insignificant. “The cityscape of Tokyo is incredibly… vast, a tangle of dead-end streets and concrete slabs that stretch to the horizon. But behind this gray exterior there is a city of surprising human dimensions." Jun Kinoshita and Nicholas Palewsky On the other hand, the lack of action by planning authorities has not contributed to improving the quality of life in Tokyo. With Japan ranking third in terms of economic success, Japanese people continue to often complain about “Rich Japan, Poor Japan.” The Japanese governmentit essentially ignored the concept of public interest until the 1990s, when for decades it was the driving force of modern Western urban planning strategies. This is mainly due to post-war Japan's main priority in achieving economic growth and planning in the public interest that would hinder development. As a welfare state, Japan has successfully established systems such as unemployment benefits, family allowances, pensions, and the National Health Service. However, housing supply is still significantly below international standards. The 1979 European Commission report described an average middle-class home in Tokyo as a "rabbit", and the quality of life would still be lower than in other OECD countries. The lack of open spaces and green spaces also likely contributed to the low quality of life, compared to the per capita green space of other cities such as New York with 29.3 square meters and London with 26.9 square meters, Tokyo has only 3 square meters. This lack of open space probably worsened earthquake and fire damage, the Great Kanto Earthquake killed 142,807 people in 1923. Despite the living conditions in Tokyo, the cost of living is very high, in 1994 on average it cost 13 times the average annual income of the country, which is a stark comparison with New York of 3 times and London just under 7 times. How could this happen in one of the richest countries in the world? A significant factor in the neglect of planning in the public interest is the Japanese government's decision to focus all its resources on economic development while spending the absolute minimum on capital stock. The Japanese people were encouraged to work hard and live on the bare minimum to help the nation achieve its goal. Priority was given to maintaining GDP growth through the production of infrastructure, where planning and development controls hindered private investment freedoms and were therefore kept weak and negligible. The local government was unable to develop independent policies to regulate land development, as its spending was strictly controlled by the central government. Policies were also passed to relieve industries from being responsible for the pollution they caused, which led to harmful environmental problems, affecting ecosystems and human health in the long term. The Japanese government was able to introduce these harmful policies by presenting them as the people's choice. It is common for a Japanese individual to incorporate their identity into the national identity, Japan has been very successful in building a nation towards post-war modernization and the people have undoubtedly supported the government. The population also had its doubts about planning, civil societies in Japan did not develop in the same way as Western ones. While Western civil societies consist primarily of nonprofit organizations working to improve urban conditions, early Japanese planning developments were the work of a small group of elite bureaucrats, and urban planning policies were imposed without any public involvement . Under these circumstances, the public began to oppose the concept of planning, and until the 1990s there was very little public support for it. Furthermore, the rights associated with land ownership remained strong in Japan, and people did not want to give up their freedoms. The government was quick to take advantage of this mindset and continued to push for the completion of additional construction projects. It is obvious that the government.