Synopsis: gravitation of population towards cities continues as people seek for good economy, hope and tolerance which allows divers values. People hope to live together disregarding the differences in areas, tribes and religions as they respect each other’ s opinions. Cities originally consisted of individuals and families, groups of those circles, occupation groups, and districts and areas with small groups and large groups cohabiting them. As people’s lives become diversified, links among the people develop from within the families and materialistic domain. into spiritual linkage which helps people have more in common. Living structures in cities are changing significantly especially as society becoming information oriented. .
For example, communication networks promote worldly and spotlike communities, and weaken the neighborhood community, yet the base of a city remains a neighborhood community. This was realized at the occurrence of the hanshin-awaji earthquake which hit on January l7, l995.
One of the important ways to attract people is to plan high quality urban environment as a whole. We admit a fictional theme park which strongly differentiates a city from others is one solution. But developing an attraction based on discovery of originality inherent to the areas will bring a strong effect as a true attraction which one can truly realize when accompanied by a modern value. The originality of these areas is the true cultural attraction backed by life styles which survived a ling history, and is the foundation of a higher dimension which supports a city fife. It can be a reason to start considering setting down in the city, or it gives the residents pride in living in the city.
Urban attraction which will bring about such interaction shall be expresses in public space and private space with a public aspect. The rote of public space in the planning stage is to allow the residents and visitors to move freely, and to seek for their place, and furthermore, to create an environment where people who happen to be there at the same time can start interacting because they feel comfortable knowing that being their means having the same tendency. And it also is to induce new activities through fully utilizing the space, to make the scenery containing people’s activities look dynamic, and to leave potential for such development.
Text by Hiroshi Innami 1999/6