Redevelopment and Reinvention in 'low City' Tokyo

The term 'gentrification' in the case of Tokyo has been applied to a process, begun in the early 1980s, of construction of high-rise residential or mixed-use complexes in formerly industrial areas (especially along the Sumida river and Tokyo Bay waterfronts). The developers behind these projects are among the largest corporations in the country. While some of the most prominent ones involve typical brownfield sites such as freight yards, most are built by consolidating many small plots, and they replace a vernacular landscape of small factories, shops, and low-rise wooden housing. This landscape, emblematic of Tokyo's traditional 'low city' areas, now exists in the gaps between towers of apartments marketed to white-collar commuters, alongside new parks and shopping facilities created as part of these developments to fulfil 'public space' commitments.
While the 'low city' landscape is pushed to the margins, there is interest in promoting a nostalgic image of it to drive local tourism as a way to compensate for the decline in manufacturing employment. This may be encouraged by developers and local authorities, as with the promotion of the 'Tokyo Skytree', a combined tourist attraction and broadcast tower opened in a formerly run-down area by a consortium of rail and TV companies, as part of a 'low city' travel experience. There are also community-led initiatives to market local culinary and other culture to visitors. Using photography, maps, and visual media including advertising, this paper documents these three contrasting visual aspects of the 'new' low city: the urbanism of concentrated capital, surviving old commercial/residential building stock, and the materialisation of revived local character (sometimes as simulacrum or museum). It aims to throw light on the local transformations brought about by this model of urbanism and critically evaluate its contribution to community life and maintaining or promoting social diversity.