Statement of the problems

The Showa era, and especially postwar Showa, holds a very unique urbanisation: the Postwar Tokyo urban model, characterised by its small scale retails, clustered shops around train stations, shopping streets and alleys, along with an egalitarian urban fabric, that is appreciated worldwide.

Unfortunately, the shopping streets are dying progressively, shops closing down one after another. The reasons are diverse: demography is shrinking, the neighbourhood social fabric has changed due to different programs of redevelopment in Tokyo planning to improve disaster resilience, urban revitalisation, enhance mobility and aim for an efficient land utilisation. (Ilunga et alii, 2025), and malls around the stations might appear to be more convenient for commuters.

While the impacts of these different plans differs from one place to another, from a total redevelopment to a more sustainable development to preserve the neighbourhood identity, and long before the nostalgia boom, people have been trying to maintain these neighbourhoods, safeguard and promote through different strategies and initiatives. Local protestations as in Shimokitazawa (Ilunga at alii, 2025), private initiatives trough books, conferences, renovations, events, etc.

Purpose of the study

Understanding the role of Shotengai in postwar showa, what is left now, and how to safeguard, or preserve, these places as buildings but also as a social place, including case studies of initiatives by Japanese and Foreigners in a context of anemoia and Nostalgia boom.

Research questions

The frame of this research would be : Tokyo between 1945-1989, focusing on the shotengai safeguarding strategies and the perception of inscribed/designated heritage and perceived heritage.
There are several questions to be answered: Who contributes to this preservation? What are the strategies and initiatives? What is already done, and what can be developed? Why do they want to preserve? How is it preserved? Which places/spaces/objects/practices? How do people, Japanese and foreigners, live this heritage? Are Tokyo’s neighbourhoods destined to be transformed? What are the solutions and strategies that could help safeguard the shotengai as a Showa heritage?

Methodology

The method would include:

• Determination of places to study in Tokyo according to their relation to the core center of the city, and a mix of abandoned, lively and modern shotengai.
• Walk around, map collection and comparison, retrieve official data through local governments to compare the evolutions of both retail and dwellers dynamics.
• Meet and survey people : locals, professionals, researchers, Foreigners living in Japan and Japanese people to better understand what makes the shotengai unique, their views on this heritage, how they live and interact in that space, etc.
• Study projects done and to be done, their results and effects on the shotengai
• Study projects from another places in the world in a similar case, of unregistered heritage, compare and maybe develop propositions or other strategies (3D, tourism, repurposed vacant spaces…) that could fit in a Japanese environment.

Expected outcome

The expected outcome is to understand why and how these places are perceived as heritage, how to safeguard their role in the local community, and to gather effective methods and initiatives that could be adapted to different places and address local issues, and create some more if possible, to both safeguard postwar urban design and guide future urban development planning.