Environmental Symbiosis and Renewal of Old Industrial Districts in Japan: Cases of Kawasaki and Kitakyushu

Abstract

This chapter investigates the renewal of old industrial districts by examining policies emphasizing environmental symbiosis. It presents a survey in two districts, Kawasaki in the Tokyo metropolitan industrial region, and Kitakyushu in western Japan, focusing on the governance of leading iron and steel makers, and the strategies and behaviour of the local governments. Kawasaki's policy promotes renewal by shifting its stance from dependence on the huge heavy and chemical industrial complex to a powerful knowledge intensive new economic space including the reform of old industries. The actions of the two districts forming a new economic space is a path leading to Japan's traditional environmental symbiosis and is a great step towards constructing a new paradigm for global sustainable development. In Japan where people have historically remained symbiotic with nature, sustainable development is a way to approach the conversion from industrialism into ecological management. In the mid-nineteenth century, Japan was willing to rapidly introduce Western technology to accomplish industrialization.