Download pdf
How Does Japanese Cultural Principles Improve Japanese Human-centric Urban Development in Tokyo, Japan?
- 1 Shanghai American School Puxi Campus
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
People grown up in their hometown will get used to the living environment, socio-economic atmosphere, and culture in their childhood, and still miss their hometown when they become adults, which is called topophilia. However, the current circumstances have seemed to be derailing from the bare-bone concept of the original craved-for human-centric designs and planning. In this article, we talk about how Japanese unique cultural principles, including harmony (“Wa”), order (“Kansei”), atheistic (“Wabi Sabi”), resilience, and pursue of excellence, guide Japanese urban environment and their socio-economic atmosphere, and further shape Japanese citizen’s topophilia for their hometown. These precious Japanese culture principles also encourage Japan’s urban development towards more and more sustainable and human-centric. This article uses the Tokyo as a case to establish a good image for other cities who wants to achieve the human centric urban development, it is also meaningful in exploring the relationship between human and city in Japan and inspire the governments to construct the city suitable for their citizens.
Keywords
human-centric urban development, urban design, Japanese culture, architecture, place.
[1]. Y.-F. Tuan, Topophilia: A study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values. Columbia University Press, 1990.
[2]. J. Jacobs et al., ‘Variation in the physical activity environment according to area-level socio-economic position—A systematic review’, Obes. Rev., vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 686–700, 2019, doi: 10.1111/obr.12818.
[3]. O. A. Ogunseitan, ‘Topophilia and the Quality of Life’, Environ. Health Perspect., vol. 113, no. 2, pp. 143–148, Feb. 2005, doi: 10.1289/ehp.7467.
[4]. T. Beery, K. I. Jönsson, and J. Elmberg, ‘From Environmental Connectedness to Sustainable Futures: Topophilia and Human Affiliation with Nature’, Sustainability, vol. 7, no. 7, Art. no. 7, Jul. 2015, doi: 10.3390/su7078837.
[5]. M. Fuller and R. Moore, An Analysis of Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Macat Library, 2017. Accessed: Aug. 11, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781912282661/analysis-jane-jacobs-death-life-great-american-cities-martin-fuller-ryan-moore
Cite this article
Kaya,K. (2024). How Does Japanese Cultural Principles Improve Japanese Human-centric Urban Development in Tokyo, Japan?. Communications in Humanities Research,63,31-36.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).