Flying into Narita airport ~ 70 km out of Tokyo, one flies over a coal fired power plant, whose plume drifts directly over a sea of rice fields. The area near Narita is covered in rice fields, glittering in the sun, broken up by hamlets. But it is also invaded road infrastructure, elevated on pilons coursing across the fields. There are a few wind turbines, and on drier, more elevated terrain, ground-mount solar. While heartening to see the solar, and I saw more on the train ride to Kanazawa, one has to wonder in a land-restricted country, what the decision making was relative to where it is located. Very little roof top solar was evident.
I spent about 5 days in Tokyo, which is either enough to have one’s fill of high-density urbanism done in the most sophisticated way, with endless high end shopping malls in spectacular high rise buildings served by subways, or not nearly enough time to digest the city-region’s complexity and subtlety (the latter, of course). I visited a number of neighborhoods, some of the older ones that were somewhat spared from the U.S. bombing have also been spared of redevelopment a la brick, concrete, steel and glass high-rise complex, and were still dominated by wood structures, at least at the ground floor. Japanese density is unlike the west – I put it that way as I have not traveled widely in Asia (though it is unlike Hongkong which is all high rises) – it tends to have high rises along the major boulevards and a warren of narrow streets that are passable by one car (and are thus one way), and generally dominated by bicycles and pedestrians. Dwellings are common wall and can be several stories, up to about 5, or single story. Streets are clean, and many dwellings have potted plants along their frontage. It leaves a feeling of a humane scale, an intimacy, especially since there are often corner stores, often cafes and bakeries. Boy do the Japanese like sweets!!
So here is the question, how might Tokyo evolve with no hydrocarbons? It was built in the height of the fossil energy age, the era of seeming abundance of materials, the time of enormous growth in Japan where the goal was to recover from the war, and to leap into twentieth century modernity. It accomplished all of that remarkably, as the history books all attest to. Rates of economic growth were unprecedented, Japanese ingenuity, hard work, discipline all made for success, and the county’s population ballooned. The countryside was increasingly abandoned, and those effects are deeply felt today. There is huge rural defection, the forests are becoming so thick as to be impassable, villages are dead or dying, and Tokyo has about 37 million people in its greater area. Population reproduction is now negative, and the economic growth rate is nearly zero. But things seems to work, on the one hand due to the invisible subsidy of fossil energy, and a reliance on imports, on the other because of public policy to support a decent life (more below). But Japan increasingly imports food, has moved to a much high proportion of meat in the diet, and is notorious for its exploitative practices in its tributary nations. I put it that way because the Japanese drive hard bargains and known for poor environmental practices. So while the country maintains a high standard of living over all, provides excellent public education, free healthcare and more, it is all built on a twentieth century modernist developmentalist paradigm. Leadership has been seduced into free trade agreements, undermining the remaining agriculturalists, and even rice subsidies have been reduced. How can this all endure in a post carbon transition? I do not feel it can. How will Tokyo unravel?
The malls in the high rises in Tokyo are immensely seductive, well lit, full of attractive merchandise, interspersed with appetizing food offerings in food courts (I ate delicious thick cut soba noodles, washed down with refreshing buckwheat tea), and crowned with world-renowned museums such as the Suntory Museum, and the totally overwhelming Mori Art Museum. The Mori is worth several visits. But elevators, escalators, moving walkways, were everywhere and essential to the scale of the buildings. I was there during the Constitution Memorial Day holiday week, so everything was crowded, but despite the throngs, the Japanese have mastered circulation. Thousands moving through space, good signage, smart design, made for smooth movement, whether in the malls or the subways or the train station.
Can this country gracefully transition to post carbon? It seems to have done so toward post growth, and Tokyo was notably free of ostentatious wealth displays, by and large. It is a country where huge wealth disparities are frowned upon – that is to say the kinds of salaries corporate barons in the U.S. are awarded. But it is also true that many Japanese live in modest dwellings, small and cramped. According to data from the United Nations, the ratio of the average income of the richest 10% in Japan to the poorest 10% is 4.5x. Child care for children between 3-5 is free, and for 0-2, the cost is subsidized by half, though is hard to receive. Health care, as mentioned above, is free.
But under Japan's Shinzo Abe the country took a more neoliberal turn toward greater free markets and financialization. The stock market surged and luxury cars sold fast in Tokyo after eight years of economic stimulus under Abenomics, like the Anglo-American West, that economic model was predicated on trickle down economic stimulus and the new wealth has been concentrated in a small slice of society rather than broadly distributed. The new prime minister is vowing to redress this situation. It is a genie hard to put back in the bottle, but hopefully Japan will recover from this excess and return to its common sense. We know that the Abenomics model of economic growth will not allow the country to maintain its services.
