Article ID: CBB066505806

Lost Rivers: Tokyo's Sewage Problem in the High-Growth Period, 1953–73 (April 2022)

unapi

Shinichiro Nakamura (Author)
Taikan Oki (Author)
Shinjiro Kanae (Author)


Technology and Culture
Volume: 63
Issue: 2
Pages: 427-449


Publication Date: April 2022
Edition Details: Special Issue - Industry in Common: Thinking Globally with Modern Japan
Language: English

Early modern Tokyo was a city of water with rivers and canals crisscrossing the city and connecting its commercial centers. However, modern Tokyo's rivers have disappeared—filled in, or converted into concrete-lined sewers. This article explores what happened to these waterways during Japan's period of rapid economic growth. It focuses on the 1961 policy decision by city planners and water engineers that resulted in the rivers-to-sewers transition in the lead-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The process of making this policy sheds light on the interface of the long-term urban industrial pollution and the short-term pressures of urban clean up before the 1964 Olympics. Contributing an envirotech perspective on industrial waste management during Japan's high-speed economic growth period, this article brings to focus a rush to pave with concrete Japan's return on the international scene, as part of the showcasing recovery from the political and economic catastrophe of World War II.

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Associated with

Article Aleksandra Kobiljski (April 2022) The Global Industrial Now. Technology and Culture (pp. 309-325). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB066505806/

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Authors & Contributors
Dressel, Gert
Irby-Massie, Georgia L.
Isaacman, Allen F
Isaacman, Barbara
Macfarlane, Daniel
Maffioli, Cesare S.
Journals
Environmental History
Technology and Culture
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Journal of Asian Studies
Social Studies of Science
Publishers
Louisiana State University Press
Ohio University Press
University of Pittsburgh Press
Madrid OEI, Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura
Concepts
Rivers
Environment
Hydrology
Engineering
Water
Waste disposal
People
Leonardo da Vinci
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
17th century
18th century
14th century
Places
Italy
Japan
United States
Tokyo (Japan)
Milan (Italy)
Vienna (Austria)
Institutions
United States. Army. Corps of Engineers
European Commission of the Danube
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