The City as a Toolkit

Lessons between Tokyo and Amsterdam on growth, vacancy and housing shortages. This is part of the PdZ x SHIBAURA HOUSE fellowship programme.

What can Tokyo and Amsterdam, two cities with very different spatial structures and cultures, learn from each other? Urban planner Prof. Shin Aiba from Tokyo Metropolitan University sees the city as a collection of spatial tools for solving problems, and a “good city” as one that can quickly identify its problems, share them, and respond through creative use of urban space. Increasingly, citizens themselves have access to the tools for doing this. As PdZ x SHIBAURA HOUSE first fellow, he opens the evening with lessons from planning practice in Tokyo, where homes stand empty in some neighbourhoods while new development spreads onto farmland. Amsterdam faces the opposite pressure: a severe housing shortage, despite its compact city planning and strict zoning policy. Where should development pressure go? Which tools, from vacant buildings to social housing, help a city respond when its needs change? And what does it take, in Tokyo and in Amsterdam, to remain a good city?

In conversation with

Shin Aiba Professor of Urban Environment at Tokyo Metropolitan University

About the speakers

Shin Aiba is a professor of Urban Environment at Tokyo Metropolitan University. He specialises in urban planning and community design, mainly researching methods of citizen participation in urban planning, urban planning in shrinking city, urban planning for post-disaster reconstruction, and urban planning in East Asia. He has been involved in urban planning in Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture, Ofunato City, Iwate Prefecture, and Setagaya Ward, Tokyo. His major publications include “Folding up the city” (2015), “Between Tsunamis, living village” (2019, Architectural Institute of Japan Book Award), “History of Urban Planning in Heisei era” (2021, Architectural Institute of Japan Book Award, City Planning Institute of Japan Paper Award, Real Estate Association Award), and ” Interviewing with city ” (2022).