Tokyo in Urban Political Ecology

Welcome to my blog on Tokyo through the Urban Political Ecology (UPE) lens. Over the course of the next few months, I aim to outline the relevance of UPE for Tokyo, and how it can be used to critically engage with the issues faced in the area.

Figure 1: Tokyo’s Infamous Shibuya Crossing

With a population of 37.4 million, Tokyo is the largest metropolitan area on the planet. Boasting the world’s busiest train station, the world’s fastest train, the world’s tallest tower just to name a few, it would be fair to consider the bustling metropolis of Tokyo a far cry from ‘nature’.

However, perhaps the disregard of cities such as Tokyo as places of nature is a casualty of a “broader refusal to see connections”. Suggesting that, Tokyo is construed through particular narratives to be a place of no nature in favour of the technologically advanced, futuristic, hectic capital (think Godzilla, Lost in Translation) – rather than a genuine absence of it.

A reconceptualisation of Tokyo based on Price’s 5th way of seeing nature in LA shows that there are actually plenty of examples where nature exists (even in Tokyo), once we stray from the traditional idea of nature as the “wilderness”.

“Nature is a landscape that we build in and manage”

Price, 2005

When nature is regarded to be something that “responds to human use and change”, we can begin to use the Urban Political Ecology (UPE) perspective to divorce the perceived dualistic barrier between urban and nature, and instead explore the two as intertwined and co-dependent. Focusing on the “more-than-urban” enriches and enlarges our knowledge through analysing the hybridity and metabolism of cities. This then has practical benefits as it can best inform action to solve issues that span across urban boundaries in specific urban, political, and environmental contexts.

Aside from my family roots and personal connection to Tokyo, the city piqued my interest as its status as the largest and most populated city on the planet makes it likely to experience socio-environmental issues to unprecedented extents. UPE is therefore very relevant as these issues have risen in urban landscapes, shaped by “ecological transformations”.

Tokyo is a particularly unique context to study from the UPE perspective as it “sets the stage for the urban century”. Currently urbanising cities may perhaps face problems in the future that Tokyo is already currently experiencing, meaning that investigating Tokyo could have the potential to accelerate the productive mitigation of socio-environmental problems over the globe.