Authors:
- Provides an in-depth account of a preservation movement based on the author’s 33 years of fieldwork
- Presents a qualitative analysis of how the preservation philosophy evolved over time
- Offers a clear picture of preservationists and city officials who are involved in a preservation battle
- Includes the most detailed, comprehensive chronology of the preservation issue
- Features a special chapter on how to combine sociological, historical, and urban planning analyses
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book is based on the author’s 33 years of intensive fieldwork. It chronicles a major movement that shaped the preservation policy in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s, providing “thick descriptions” of preservationists that are not available anywhere else in English. It also provides clear answers to a series of pressing questions about preservationists: are they building-huggers, are they selfish and myopic home-owners, or are they merely obstacles to urban planning and urban renewal?
Since 1984, Saburo Horikawa, Professor of Sociology at Hosei University in Tokyo, has continuously studied the movement to preserve the Otaru Canal in Otaru, Japan. This book shows that the preservation movement was neither conservative nor an obstacle. Rather, the movement sought to promote changes in which the residents’ “place” would continue to be theirs. As such, the word “preservation” does not mean the prevention of growth and development, but rather its control. As is shown in this study, preservation allows for and can even promote change.
The original Japanese version of this book (published by the University of Tokyo Press) has won 3 major academic awards; most notably, “The Ishikawa Prize”, the highest award bestowed by the City Planning Institute of Japan. It is extremely unusual that a sociology book should receive such important recognition from the city planning discipline.
Authors and Affiliations
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Department of Sociology, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan
Saburo Horikawa
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Why Place Matters
Book Subtitle: A Sociological Study of the Historic Preservation Movement in Otaru, Japan, 1965–2017
Authors: Saburo Horikawa
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71600-4
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-71599-1Published: 01 June 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-71602-8Published: 02 June 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-71600-4Published: 31 May 2021
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXVI, 416
Number of Illustrations: 90 b/w illustrations, 11 illustrations in colour
Topics: Urban Studies/Sociology, Environmental Sociology, History of Japan, Urban Geography / Urbanism (inc. megacities, cities, towns), Sustainable Development