Software for Waterfront Development --from the viewpoint of regional
management--
Tadashi Kawabata
Director of K Planners, Chiiki Kenkyu-jo Co., Ltd.
The waterfront development can be based on the similar concept to that
of urban development. However, it should be noted that the accessibility
to the sea is particularly important for the waterfront development.
The inner harbor renovation began in 1960s in Europe and the United
States; many development plans were presented in 70's and completed
one after another in the early 80s.
In Japan, the term “waterfront” was used referring to coastal zone
in the 3rd comprehensive national development plan of 1977. This concept
began to draw attention during the bubble years of mid-80s. I will
show some ideas for realizing regional affluence in our era of low
growth, from viewpoint of regional management. Focusing on residents
participation and autonomous body management, I will introduce internal
and external case studies, and suggest directions for future plans.
Although some differences may be found between the West and Japan in
their processes of transition, the waterfront development can be roughly
classified into four categories. The first category is inner harbor
renovation, the second is joint development, the third is link between
land use and industrial policy; through these steps, we are at the
forth category including wide area collaboration looking at sustainable
growth, wide area environmental infrastructure, concentrated development,
and citizen participation.
The regional management of recent development should be based on the
following interrelated viewpoints: "approach for project and management" and "urban
and regional planning". As for the first viewpoint, the cooperation
of citizens often affects the success of project. City of Yokohama
has prepared pioneering development combining water area and land area.
Although existing planning was made for shorter terms (5 to 10 years),
Yokohama has drawn up long-term strategy for Minato Mirai 21 project.
For urban and regional planning, the concept of "tentative utilization" can
be found as a part of process-oriented (non-MP) planning. Meanwhile,
Kobe City has focused on industrial or employment policy.
Now we look at division of roles in one of the foreign cases, San Francisco
Bay Trail; San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission（BCDC）
is the authorized entity for the development, and makes propositions
on various issues; coordination and advises of the overall plan have
been made by The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), which
handles environmental and socioeconomic problems in practice. We can
see many differences in participation of citizens from Japanese cases;
volunteer groups mainly take an active part in raising issues to politicians,
collect contributions and sell goods for raising funds in the case
of San Francisco.
Lastly, I proposed the following points for introducing process-oriented
regional development in Japan:
1) Socially experimental regional development should act as a trigger;
2) New management body and new evaluation criteria will be needed;
3) The division of project sectors (private and public) will vanish;
4) Introducing market mechanism into public project, and philanthropic
resource into private projects;
5) Necessity for reorganizing subsidy system and budget drafting system.
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