Challenges in district management in Japanese city centres: Establishing independent business models using local resources

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how the concept of district management has been developed in Japan and to identify its characteristics and issues, after illustrating the change in economic circumstances and policies regarding city centres since the 1940s. In Japan, the government has dealt with urban decay, first by large-scale commercial facility regulation, then by nurturing district management organisations responsible for developing and implementing revitalisation plans. A problem is that many of these organisations have depended on subsidy, thus it has been difficult to realise prolonged implementation. Under these circumstances, private district management organisations began to form, supported by the membership of property and business owners. Some of them soon developed independent businesses using local resources such as facility management, vacant buildings or public spaces in order to generate financial resources for district management. Although the largest challenge still exists — the issue of securing equal and stable funding based on compulsory tax or assessment, as in Business Improvement Districts — district management projects focusing on independent businesses using local resources are considered a realistic and non-responsibility-postponing approach with the aim of creating business plans with a good balance of income and expense.