Page 459 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

Japanese Smart Communities as Industrial Policy Chapter j 21 429

For one thing, the city itself was a first mover rather than a passive
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participant. Higashi Matsushima Mayor Abe Hideo was a practitioner of
citizen-centered city management even before 3-11. After the disaster, Abe led
the rebuilding of his city under the slogan “Never Forget That Day” and with
the ambition of energy autonomy. Higashi Matsushima residents were fully in
support, having direct experience of the death and prolonged suffering that
results when critical infrastructure fails. The depth of community spirit was
evident in how quickly and efficiently they got rid of the wreckage. Higashi
Matsushima’s residents, local businesses, and other stakeholders recycled an
incredible 99% of 1.098 million tons of ruins from the disaster, achieving an
extremely low JPY 18,000/ton cost (MOE, 2016a, p. 6). The community also
organized in the “Higashi Matsushima Organization for Progress and Econ-
omy, Education and Energy (HOPE),” formally inaugurated as a company on
October 1, 2012. Under this leadership, the city undertook a citizen-centered
project on relocating the 1400 households whose residences were destroyed
by 3-11.
In her January 2017 Japanese book on “community energy,” the expert
environmental journalist Kono Hiroko (2017) reveals both the extensive
community engagement and the crucial role of the central government and
business interests. Kono’s careful research, the best yet on Higashi Matsush-
ima’s project, relies on in-depth interviews as well as concrete fiscal and
administrative details. Kono relates that Japan’s Ministry of the Environment
(MOE) recognized Higashi Matsushima’s local capacity and, in the spring of
2014, suggested city officers apply for a distributed energy subsidy. The city
got the funds and was able to use them (along with other monies) to cover
three-fourths of the JPY 500 million cost of the eco town’s power system
(Kono, 2017,p.63).
Higashi Matsushima City Smart Disaster Prevention Eco Town also
includes large corporate interests. Sekisui House, one of the world’s largest
home builders and a developer of 16 smart communities in Japan that were
energy self-sufficient and disaster resilient (Sekisui House, 2016,p.25),
was brought in to construct the housing units. The business consortium,
“Smart City Project,” inaugurated on September 9, 2009, provided design
advice. The Smart City Project includes 27 leading Japanese firms,
including home builders such as Mitsui, Sekisui, and Shimizu; ICT firms
such as NTT Communications and NEC corporation; smart energy systems
firms like Azbil Corporation, Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Tokyo Gas;
and urban planning specialists such as Nikken Sekkei and Kokusai Kogyo
Group. 4

3. In this chapter, Japanese names are rendered surname first, in accordance with Japanese usage.
4. An English language introduction to the Smart City Project and its members is available at the
following URL: http://www.smartcity-planning.co.jp/en/index.html.