Boundaries in a Sea of Conflict - Tokyo Bay Final Disposal Site and the Quiet Conflict between Tokyo Metropolis and Prefectures, 1995

Boundaries in a Sea of Conflict - Tokyo Bay Final Disposal Site and the Quiet Conflict between Tokyo Metropolis and Prefectures, 1995

In the 1990s, Japanese cities were being buried under garbage. The accelerating pace of consumerism and urban expansion could no longer be contained in existing landfills, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government decided to construct a new landfill site - a "new sea-level disposal site". However, what stood in the way was not nature, but a "blurred boundary.

Chiba Prefecture insisted that the area in the middle of Tokyo Bay, where the landfill was to be built, "belongs to our prefecture. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Chiba Prefecture continued to play a quiet tug-of-war, with complicated interests such as fishing rights, tax revenues, and land registration intertwined. The fate of the garbage became a symbol of the administrative tug-of-war.

In July 1995, the two parties finally reached a tentative agreement. The disposal site was to be "common land," and compensation and the distribution of taxes were to be decided through consultations. However, what awaits them is the issue of management responsibility, water quality preservation, and land use. This sea was not a boundary, but a stage for struggle.

As long as the city continues to grow, the waves of the boundary will continue to rock quietly and surely.