A city that matches the size of its residents
Before the pandemic, the urban areas have been established based on the “fast-moving” means of transportation focusing on efficiency, such as cars and trains rather than human walking speed and the size of human body. However, after the pandemic occurred, in the urban areas that have office districts, the outflow of the daytime population has started to be seen, and the center of the urban area’s value shifted from “work” to “spend time”. Building a better city environment is required so that pedestrians and bicycles can travel comfortably, and many public roads and streets will be transformed into places of relaxation focusing on the ease of getting involved with other people.
One after another, office buildings are being transformed into residential apartments, halting a city’s growth in affluence. Artists and technologists move to the urban areas that have changed into residential areas, and revitalize the city. They realize that they can create a rich lifestyle without the roads, facilities and shops that have fulfilled the major functions, and come to change the area into a place of experimentation that incorporates nature, art, and technology. While people no longer feel the need for the traditional infrastructure, the facilities that were newly created, such as the sidewalks of expressways, come to function as “places of relaxation” that connect them with the city.
The city is revitalized by a fusion of nature, art, and technology. The large structures such as stations, which once contributed to the improvement of the urban functionality, play a role of bringing people close to nature. The modern concept of scrap-and-build-type redevelopment has faded and, instead of tearing down old structures, there is growing focus placed on revitalizing those structures through art and nature. After people plant seedlings around the old facilities, these places transform into trees-covered “mountains” over a long period of time. In this way, the “revitalization” along natural time is proceeded, and people will watch over how the city changes including the growth of the landscape, which becomes a symbol of the new city.
As the need to travel for work has dropped dramatically, a discussion revolving around means of transportation has begun. From a business perspective, it has become difficult to maintain privately managed transportation services, forcing people to question their right to move about freely. As a result, they have come to realize their own responsibility in securing the means to move about freely and, in their search for means of transportation that can be maintained by the city and offers high flexibility, people have begun experimenting with various ideas, such as collecting a base fee from all residents and switching to on-demand bus services. At the same time, the concept of infrastructure not as something to be used, but rather as something maintained through the support of residents themselves is starting to take root.
Through trial and error regarding how an infrastructure should be, the relationship between the citizens and the infrastructure becomes more apparent. The urban mobility is handled by the minimal public transportation, and many stations become more important as commercial, cultural and logistics bases in the region. In each area, business entities appear and handle the regional infrastructure comprehensively. People support entrepreneurs involved in the development of a new infrastructure, such as the regional circulation of renewable energy and the construction of the distribution systems between a station to each household. A unique infrastructure is created in each area, and the small-scale and flexible infrastructure is increasingly essential so that the citizens can get involved in it.
