Culture-Driven Gentrification from below: A Case Study of Tokyo, Japan

This paper analyses the ongoing process of Tokyo’s gentrification from the case study of former working class neighborhood in east Tokyo. Since gentrification has generalized as a global urban phenomenon, it has become an avowed policy goal of the cities competing for economic supremacy and globalized services. In Tokyo, recent redevelopment of the central Tokyo which actively promoted by state authorities had been considered.

The eastern part of Tokyo has been developed as an industrial district in the rapid economic growth period of modern Japan. Like many run-down areas in other cities, it has suffered from the decline of local manufacturing due to de-industrialization and had remained as a place that stimulates nostalgia for “the good old days” rather than attractive tourist destination until 1980s. However, when art exhibitions in derelict factories and community-engaged art projects as local experiment for community rebuilding had begun in late 1990s, changes occurred gradually. Galleries and studios started to set up in the area, while tenement houses replaced with small independent restaurants and cafes. Local art festivals and tourism campaigns coupled with commercial and residential redevelopment of surrounding area started to lure tourists and relocating businesses. The initial intentions of art as a cultural resistance slowly fade out, while the focus has been moved to economic revitalization and celebrating authenticity.

This may be a common scene in many ‘creative cities’ around the world, but what makes difference is that instead of “revanchist city”, there is coexistence of expectations for gentrification from the local community itself and deep-rooted nostalgia to the past based on the myth of ethnic homogeneity. Both the main features of first-wave gentrification in 1970s and current state-led gentrification can be seen in this case, intertwining various elements of gentrification history that has been formed from multiple time and space.