Presentation short abstract

The paper examines the process in which a small coastal town in Japan developed its preference for town planning dissociated with growthism, the demographic, economic, and cultural impacts of this preference, and how it balances its postgrowth strategy with growth-oriented national planning policy.

Presentation long abstract

As postgrowth planning is scarcely observed in reality, shrinking cities are acknowledged as precious examples of planning practices dissociated with the growth-oriented paradigm. This paper conducts a case study of Manazuru, Japan, a small, shrinking coastal town who deliberately chose to stay small amidst speculative developments in the nearby towns in the 1980s-90s. Throughout the 1990 and 2000s, the town of Manazuru enacted strong regulations against large-scale speculative second house developments, incorporated “aesthetic guidelines” in their planning documents to preserve its traditional landscape, and through a referendum, chose not to merge with nearby towns and cities. Today, the town aims to become a “Small, Slow and Smart” town through endorsing compact planning paired with improved public transport and walkability, smart city technologies, and local currency. The town has been exhibiting a postgrowth approach for several decades, a rarity in Japanese planning context, to preserve its landscape and cultural identity.

By conducting a content analysis of policy documents, as well as interviews of local decision makers, this paper 1) examines the process in which the town of Manazuru came to develop its preference for smallness, 2) assesses the demographic, economic, and cultural influences of this decision by comparing with nearby towns who chose a more growth-oriented path, and 3) analyzes how the town balances its postgrowth strategy with growth-oriented national level planning policy. The case study offers empirical evidence of a postgrowth approach at the municipality level.