Mapping everyday community life in suburban shrinking areas around Tokyo: case study of Minamiashigara, Kanagawa prefecture

ABSTRACT

Although the suburbs of numerous cities worldwide are shrinking, research on how to address suburban decline remains scarce. This paper explores participatory mapping in shrinking suburbs as a tool to articulate knowledge co-creation between local officials and communities to inform planning decisions. The paper argues that participatory planning helps to identify sweet spots, everyday life community spaces upon which to anchor regeneration strategies. Using as a case study Minamiashigara, a shrinking suburb of Tokyo, the paper discusses how sweet spots can be integrated into existing municipal strategies to alleviate the consequences of shrinkage.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban shrinkage
• suburbs
• place attachment
• participatory mapping
• Tokyo metropolitan area

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics of human subject participation

All the interviews were carried out with the principles of informed consent, voluntary participation, and the protection of the participant’s anonymity and confidentiality.

Notes

1. ‘Machi Hito Shigoto Sōsei-hō’ in Japanese.

2. ‘Machi Hito Shigoto Sōsei Chōki Bijon’ and ‘Machi Hito Shigoto Sōsei Sōgō Senryaku’ in Japanese respectively.

3. Kōminkan are community centers run by the local government offering different services and meeting rooms for the residents.

4. Interview quotes translated from Japanese by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The present work was supported by the Toyota Foundation under Grant [D19-LR-0007]. We would like to thank Emma Fushimi for her support in proofreading the paper. We are also most grateful to the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.