Eve of destruction

November 2024 | Cover story

The revised plan to redevelop Jingu Gaien will only make things worse, say campaigners

Plans by Mitsui Fudosan to redevelop the area around Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo have become a flashpoint for sharply competing views of the city’s future. Opponents (most famously the late musician Ryuichi Sakamoto), argue that felling trees and demolishing Meiji Jingu Stadium and Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium to build two replacements, along with commercial skyscrapers, a hotel and other facilities will “rip the soul” out of the area, the Asahi Shimbun said.

Supporters say that narrative is not only anti-progress in a city that has long thrived on creative destruction; it is simply wrong. While it is true, argued a recent Bloomberg opinion piece, that the Jingu Gaien project, approved by city’s government in February 2023, will topple several hundred trees from the century-old landmark, “these will be replaced, leaving more green space and trees in the park after the development than before”.

The Japanese Bar Association waded into the row in March, pointedly saying they did not consider Mitsui Fudosan’s environmental impact assessment of the development “objective or scientific” and urging the city to suspend it. That follows the issuance of a so-called “heritage alert” to conserve the area by a UNESCO advisory body called the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). Though non-binding, the alert does raise the stakes. 

The backlash has prodded Mitsui Fudosan (one of four partners in the development, along with Meiji Jingu shrine, the Japan Sport Council and Itochu Corp) to submit a revised plan, which it says will leave more trees standing. “We know the area is a place that is meaningful to everyone,” a Mitsui official told Kyodo in September. Does that end the dispute? Hardly, according to two ICOMOS officials who spoke at the FCCJ in October.

Mikiko Ishikawa, the organization’s director, said the revised plan was actually worse. “Everything we have said is being ignored,” she said. Yasuyoshi Okada, the organization’s president, criticized the response of the Tokyo government to their concerns as “insincere”.

Ishikawa cited safety and crowd management concerns in the rebuilt complex, and the ongoing degradation of natural resources in the area. But what has given the row particular potency after another summer that saw heat records tumbling at climate monitoring stations from the Arctic to the South Pacific, is the concern that it will shrink Tokyo’s already limited green canopy. Scientists say trees significantly lower urban temperatures. Ishikawa said the revised plan would merely reduce the number of felled trees from 918 to 861. For context, the inner garden of Meiji Shrine has lost more than 130,000 trees since 1971, when it had 168,000. It had 36,000 as of 2013.

Replacing older trees with newer ones is not a solution, Ishikawa said. “When you cut down a big tree of over 100 years old, it is not effective at all in helping the environment. It’s not the number of trees that you plant, it's the type – such trees do not grow and are not effective.” Ishikawa insisted that any redevelopment should aim to keep older, bigger trees and maintain them, adding that it wasn’t even clear why the development was needed. “The main objective for Mitsui and Itochu is financial,” she said.

This is a global problem. America loses more than 30 million trees a year to urbanization and development, according to one survey. In response to increasingly alarming climate forecasts, cities across the world, including London, New York, Shanghai and Los Angeles, have embarked on plans to plant millions of trees. Tokyo, too, has published a raft of green initiatives, but, according to critics, three large redevelopment projects, Jingu Gaien, Hibiya Park and Kasai Marine Park, will all reduce tree cover. 

Tokyo already ranks comparatively low in green space (far below London, for example). Yet the shrines that dot every neighborhood, which are often home to trees, are also threatened by developers. Cash-strapped temples and shrines are putting land up for sale, often to pay for refurbishments. More than 500 shrines nationwide, including 25 in Tokyo, have disappeared over the last decade, according to the cultural affairs agency.

The cumulative impact of urban redevelopment in Tokyo over the last decade is summarized in a recent paper by two University of Tokyo scientists. The scientists used satellite imagery to calculate that tree canopy cover in Tokyo shrank by 1.9% from 2013 to 2022. The highest percentage of tree cover loss occurred in residential areas: single-family houses (39.8%), followed by roads (14.7%), educational and cultural facilities (10.8%), and parks (10.4%).

“The main factors responsible for tree cover loss are private housing developments, urban redevelopments, and the removal of trees in parks, along streets, and in educational and cultural facilities,” the authors said.

Ishikawa said one of the reasons why Gaien is unique is that it was created with donations from the public. She called for more transparency and public discussion before such large development projects begin. In practice, say critics, many public parks are being developed with private interests, which often means clearing green spaces to make way for cafes and other places. Among the casualties in the Meiji/Jingu Gaien plan, they say, are public facilities such as free outdoor sports fields for children.

As FCCJ member Tim Hornyak noted in a Japan Times piece about the Jingu Gaien project, the wider issue at stake is about the corporate takeover of what should be public land, how parks and other public spaces should be managed, “and for whose benefit”.

Can the row be resolved, especially with media reporting that the first trees were felled at the end of October? Ishikawa said the Meiji Shrine should donate the area to the state to manage. “Maintenance and management costs would be reduced and there would be no need for reckless urban development,” she said, adding that, as yet, there was no sign of government intervention. “What I’m saying is that in order to protect the forest and to work for environmental protection, you cannot just let the developers take over these forests and destroy them”.

David McNeill is professor of communications and English at University of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo, and co-chair of the FCCJ’s Professional Activities Committee. He was previously a correspondent for the Independent, the Economist and the Chronicle of Higher Education.