The Struggle between the City and Agricultural Land: The Problem of the Disappearance of the Countryside in Midori Ward, Yokohama - April 1995

The Struggle between the City and Agricultural Land: The Problem of the Disappearance of the Countryside in Midori Ward, Yokohama - April 1995

In the mid-1990s, the land prices in Japan's urban areas were falling after the collapse of the bubble economy, and a new wave of urban development was once again moving toward the suburbs. Midori-ku, Yokohama, was no exception, and areas that had once been satoyama and rice paddies were rapidly being converted to residential land. 1995 saw a sharp increase in applications to convert agricultural land to residential land in this ward, along with a review of "urbanization control zones". In particular, residential developers acquired farmland in batches and developed the land in bulk, and the landscape of the area was drastically transformed in just a few years.

This wave of urbanization had a serious impact on the ecosystem. The rice paddies, streams, and bamboo forests that remained in the valley topography have been lost, and the habitats of native species that depended on them, such as frogs, fireflies, dragonflies, and bush warblers, have disappeared. Local nature observation groups warned of the loss of biodiversity, but the city government at the time was primarily concerned with "housing supply" and "development promotion," and failed to strike a balance with nature conservation.

Furthermore, farmland owners also faced a painful reality. Due to the aging of the population and the pressure of inheritance taxes, many farmland owners have had to give up their farmland. Although the city's green space preservation ordinance existed systematically, there were few actual cases of its application, and there was a difference in temperature between local residents and the government.

Thus, in Midori-ku, Yokohama in 1995, the strain of postwar "urban-intensive growth" had become apparent in both the ecosystem and the agricultural infrastructure. The issues that lead to today's "symbiosis of city and nature" and "ecological network" concepts were already emerging at this time.