Participatory rural planning in Japan: promises and limits of neighborhood associations

Since the 1990s, there is a growing concern over public participation in local environmental improvement efforts, known as Machizukuri. One progressive practice at the time was the introduction of due process, by which the Machizukuri plan was formulated based on public participation. In the arena of rural planning, some scholars expect that such an ordinance concerned with land use control and democratic decision making will become an effective planning institution for those who deal with rural planning. When we deal with participatory rural planning, we need to pay special attention to the role and the influence of neighborhood associations (NAs) such as chonaikai, jicikai, and burakukai because these organizations have played very important roles in the local administration as a vehicle of demands and concerns for residents. In this paper, authors, through a case study, clarified promises and limits of the NA-based participation in which an NA plays a central role in the planning process. While admitting that adaptation for local context and tradition is an essential part of designing an effective public participation program, the authors contend that there are many risks associated with NA-based participation, such as the lack of communication among residents and partial representation by elderly men. In order, for the NA-based participation, to be more successful, we need to adopt the following measures: (1) young people and women are appointed as representatives, (2) representatives are competent enough to handle planning issues and to represent their constituents, (3) if they are not competent, appropriate measures are adopted to build their capacity or substitutes are sought, and (4) we need to monitor the planning process to make sure that the representatives act as intermediaries between a planning body and its constituents.