Building New Communities in Tohoku
The physical devastation in the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan was immediately clear and overwhelming, even from a distance, and the ongoing work to rebuild cities on higher ground is a striking civil engineering project. However, beyond the need to create new physical infrastructure there lies a concurrent need to create new social infrastructure, and this is not so readily apparent to the eye. Communities were under stress already, prior to the triple disasters of March 11, 2011, owing to declining birthrates, the outmigration of young people looking for opportunities, and the aging and mortality inevitably taking place among those who stayed behind, combined with changing economic and social behavior.… Read More »Building New Communities in Tohoku