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Monthly Archives: 11/2014

Tokyo’s Flow: The Importance of Material in Historical Tokyo

Posted on by Genise Choy

As part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative Colloquium called Reading Cities, Sensing Cities we have asked students and visitors to write responses to each of the weekly guest lectures.


November 20, 2014
The Tokyo Model: Lessons in Slum Non-Clearance from the World’s First “Megacity”
Jordan Sand (Japanese History and Culture, Georgetown University)

Presentation available here.
Video of the conversation available here.
Professor Sand presented his research on the activities of a Tokyo slumlord at the turn of the 20th century.


by Yael Hadar

No phenomenon can be explained outside of its context. In his lecture, “Lessons in Slum Non- Clearance from the World’s First Megacity,” Professor Jordan Sand talks about the historical context in which Edo became Tokyo, the largest metropolitan area in the world.

Professor Sand addressed in his lecture two things that I found fascinating. One was the idea of fire as a force that shapes the city and its population. The other was the idea of materials and the flow of materials.

The buildings in Edo were destroyed by fire approximately once every 5 to 10 years. The temporality of place made investments in real estate not worthwhile. In this setting, Professor Sand brings the unique story of Osaki Tatsugoro, an illiterate builder who purchased peripheral land at the end of the 19th century and built a neighborhood called Nishimaru-cho that had approximately 300 housing units.

What I found most interesting about Osaki’s story is the lease agreement he had his tenants sign in which the tenants gave away their right to all the human waste they produced at the site so that Osaki could sell it as fertilizer. The lease agreement also states that when a tenant does not follow said agreement, Osaki is allowed to take out all the outside shutters and floor boards from the house to deter the tenant from staying.

This relates directly to a finding Professor Sand presented in the form of an image of what people from Edo took with them in the case of fire--their textiles, floor boards and movable doors.



Image courtesy of Jordan Sand


Both of those examples, Osaki’s lease and the image of what people chose to save from fire, can teach us the importance of movable materials in historical Tokyo. When everything can be destroyed quickly, things need to be moved quickly. This, Professor Sand says, can teach us about the importance of flow. When we come to look at a city like Tokyo we should consider looking at the movement of materials, the movement of “stuff,” rather than try to investigate the space, as it might be that those are still the things that are valued in a place like Tokyo.

Yael Hadar is a graduate student in the UC Berkeley Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning.


“Invoking” The Spirits of History: Tokyo’s Nishimaru-cho

Posted on by Genise Choy

As part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative Colloquium called Reading Cities, Sensing Cities we have asked students and visitors to write responses to each of the weekly guest lectures. November 20, 2014 The Tokyo Model: Lessons in Slum Non-Clearance from the World’s First “Megacity” Jordan Sand (Japanese History and Culture, Georgetown University) Presentation available here. Video of the conversation available here. Professor Sand presented his research on the activities of a Tokyo slumlord at the turn of the 20th century. by Jon Pitt In The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau writes, “There is no place that is…


The Subtle Details of Community and City

Posted on by Genise Choy

As part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative Colloquium called Reading Cities, Sensing Cities we have asked students and visitors to write responses to each of the weekly guest lectures. November 13, 2014 From 1904 Dublin to the Megacity: Public Access in Ulysses and Katarina Schröter’s The Visitor Catherine Flynn (English) Presentation available here. Video of the conversation available here. Flynn’s talk raised the question of urban knowing and related it to the literary and filmic representations of the city and megacity. by Yasir Hameed Professor Flynn’s talk last week discussed works by James Joyce (Ulysses) and Katarina Schröter (The…


Opportunities to Create an Inclusive Sense of Place

Posted on by Genise Choy

As part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative Colloquium called Reading Cities, Sensing Cities we have asked students and visitors to write responses to each of the weekly guest lectures. November 6, 2014 The Art of Change: Exploring Neighborhoods in Transition Sue Mark (marksearch) and Anisha Gade (City and Regional Planning and Architecture) Presentation available here. Video of the conversation available here. Mark and Gade discussed their project, Communities’ Crossing, a creative placemaking effort along San Pablo Avenue. by Yasir Hameed During Sue Mark and Anisha Gade’s presentation, it was stated that it is not possible for planners to create…


Exploring Neighborhood Boundaries and Transforming Community

Posted on by Genise Choy

As part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative Colloquium called Reading Cities, Sensing Cities we have asked students and visitors to write responses to each of the weekly guest lectures. November 6, 2014 The Art of Change: Exploring Neighborhoods in Transition Sue Mark (marksearch) and Anisha Gade (City and Regional Planning and Architecture) Presentation available here. Video of the conversation available here. Mark and Gade discussed their project, Communities’ Crossing, a creative placemaking effort along San Pablo Avenue. by Yuqing Nie Last week, artist Sue Mark and urban planner/design researcher Anisha Gade gave a talk on their latest creative place-making…


Living Archives: Filling Silences in History

Posted on by Genise Choy

As part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative Colloquium called Reading Cities, Sensing Cities we have asked students and visitors to write responses to each of the weekly guest lectures. November 6, 2014 The Art of Change: Exploring Neighborhoods in Transition Sue Mark (marksearch) and Anisha Gade (City and Regional Planning and Architecture) Presentation available here. Video of the conversation available here. Mark and Gade discussed their project, Communities’ Crossing, a creative placemaking effort along San Pablo Avenue. by Jaime Gómez The tons of documents hidden in Archives with a capital “A” around the world and managed by public and…


The Albany Bulb and Ephemeral Layers of Territory

Posted on by Genise Choy

As part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative Colloquium called Reading Cities, Sensing Cities we have asked students and visitors to write responses to each of the weekly guest lectures. October 30, 2014 Nature, Culture, and Conflict at a Shoreline Landfill: The Albany Bulb Susan Moffat (Global Urban Humanities Initiative) Moffat presented on The Atlas of the Albany Bulb, her oral history and mapping project about a landfill on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, which has been the location of bitter battles between people holding different notions of the proper uses of public space, and of what a…


Bay Area Landscapes and the Conflict Over Open Space

Posted on by Genise Choy

As part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative Colloquium called Reading Cities, Sensing Cities we have asked students and visitors to write responses to each of the weekly guest lectures. October 30, 2014 Nature, Culture, and Conflict at a Shoreline Landfill: The Albany Bulb Susan Moffat (Global Urban Humanities Initiative) Moffat presented on The Atlas of the Albany Bulb, her oral history and mapping project about a landfill on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, which has been the location of bitter battles between people holding different notions of the proper uses of public space, and of what a…