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Developing a Resilient City in Kobe, Japan
STRATEGYAccelerate the transition to sustainable communities and cities
CHALLENGE
To repair the physical, social and economic degradation resulting from a major earthquake, and lessen the potential for loss of life and other damage in the future.
ACTION
Physically restore the city's infrastructure and revive the city through a plan that addresses physical, social and institutional issues ultimately creating a resilient community better able to withstand natural disasters
PROFILE
City of Kobe, Japan
Population: 1,506,112
Land Area: 550 km2
Municipal Budget: US$16 billion
CASE
The City of Kobe, together with Osaka and Kyoto, forms the focal point for the western-Japanese economy. The south side of the city is highly urbanized and industrialized, while other parts have mixed development or remain rural. One million people reside in southern Kobe.
The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake took place on January 17, 1995. In the City of Kobe alone, the earthquake killed over 4,500 and injured almost 15,000 people. The majority of the victims were elderly and people who lived in poorly built structures. More than 67,000 buildings in the city collapsed, and many more burned or suffered other damages. Since water and transportation infrastructure failed, large-scale life-saving activities were not available where they were needed the most.
The City of Kobe found that institutional inefficiency made the resulting secondary disaster more serious. Lack of effective information sharing among national, prefectural and municipal governments slowed life-saving activities immediately after the quake. Evacuees faced poor access to medical services, food and housing for a considerable period of time after the quake. Financial support from the government to restore personal housing was not immediately available. Thus, emergency survival and restoration of private property were dependent on personal finances.
The earthquake made it clear that Kobe was not disaster-resistant-physically, socially, economically or institutionally. Kobe needed to have a new development strategy and in June 1995, the city established the ten-year Kobe Revival Plan (KRP).
The aim of the KRP is to revive the city by fostering communities, and strengthening the economy and culture using a multistakeholder decision-making process. In the short term, the focus was on the quick restoration of urban infrastructure, while the creation of a disaster-proof society is the long-term goal.
Kobe strategically adopted communities as the driving units of the plan. After a disaster, community groups can respond much more effectively to immediate needs than a central government can. Kobe established Disaster-preventive and Welfare Communities (DWCs) to implement the disaster management plan. Units are divided by elementary school districts, which generally hold about 10,000 people. Presently, 187 districts have established DWCs. Units are expected to collect public comments, check durability of structures and host disaster simulation events.
The immediate goal of the KRP was to help the victims of the quake and to restore the city physically, socially and economically. This was achieved through a series of programs.
Civic Life Rehabilitation
Civic life rehabilitation included providing houses, promoting employment and securing sufficient medical services especially for low-income and elderly citizens. In the five years after the quake approximately 149,000 houses were built. As restoration of private property was primarily dependent on personal financial capability, the government chose to focus not only building houses, but on job promotion and financial support for low-income citizens.
A national act to provide funds to those experiencing a natural disaster was established after the quake. Local authorities in Japan lobbied the national government to establish this act. It was effective retroactively for the victims of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. Based on the act, Kobe provided personal financial support therefore improving the affordability of private property restoration.
Economic Restoration
Kobe has been supporting the rehabilitation of existing businesses both financially and technically, although the business environment has yet to be completely restored. The physical restoration of major public facilities such as the port, roads and railways was completed two years after the quake.
Attractive Kobe
Since the quake, open spaces have been expanded and networked, and information infrastructure has been further developed. These are not only making Kobe more attractive, but also contributing to future disaster management, as both are of critical importance in times of emergency. As well, the city has been promoting broader urban environmental sensitivity.
Collaboration
Community-based organizations (CBOs) were recognized as major contributors to the implementation of the plan including life-saving activities immediately after the quake. CBOs have helped victims who had to settle into new communities. Recognizing the importance of CBOs, Kobe is working to collaborate with these organizations to increase communication at the community level, which will also improve disaster preparedness at this level.
Resilient Community
Kobe is implementing physical and social durability improvements at the community level. Community-based educational programs about disaster prevention are underway including workshops for fostering community leaders and seminars for residents. Meanwhile, the fire department has revised their organization and is using state-of-art information systems and equipment.
Physical restoration of the city has been achieved as planned or at an even faster pace than expected. However, it was difficult for Kobe to identify appropriate solutions (acute and top-down versus long-term and participatory) immediately after the quake because the restoration work was urgent. Some policies applied were inappropriate as a result.
Going Forward
In 2000, the municipal government announced after public input that physical restoration had been completed. Moving forward, the government recognized a number of outstanding issues:
- although rebuilding was complete, some citizens had lost jobs and did not have access to family doctors partly because of moves. In order to fully rehabilitate the city, Kobe is working to increase access to public services and improve all citizens' lives.
- the economy, as the basis of a residents income, has to be revived,
- urban development for disaster-prevention has to be continued and maintained.
RESULTS
Kobe has quickly achieved the physical restoration of urban structures through both top-down and collaborative approaches. Within five years of the quake, Kobe had built 149,000 houses, rebuilt infrastructure and transportation networks, and established community units to ensure the effectiveness of disaster planning. In general, residents are playing a much greater role in the management of the city. Almost 40% of elderly people, and more that 50% of youth are participating in community groups. Kobe aims to increase this significantly over the next five years. Throughout the process, social improvements have also been implemented. It was found that the ties that exist within communities can increase the resilience of a neighborhood. This connection definitely improved the effectiveness of various projects. Fostering these relationships will be an important part of Kobe's ongoing work.
LESSONS LEARNED
Kobe's experience provides four major lessons. First, an educated and empowered community is the practical unit for disaster management. Considering that governmental functions are not very active immediately after a vast disaster, fostering communities with abilities to help themselves is essential.
Second, physical resilience of structures is a basic requirement of a disaster-proof city. Since structural damage is predictable in a disaster, it is necessary for local authorities to devise countermeasures.
Third, institutional preparedness such as security, flow of information (among governments, between municipal government and residents, and among residents) and medical logistics are highly important. In order to maintain institutional procedures, it is important to operate them regularly, not only for disaster prevention, but as day-to-day events. Neglecting these factors will delay life-saving activities and make a disaster unnecessarily worse.
Fourth, identification of appropriate policies for restoration is needed even under difficult circumstances, as this will reduce conflict during program implementation. The City of Kobe would have preferred to hasten the institutional supply of necessities however rezoning and redevelopment projects could have been implemented more slowly to increase community involvement. Necessities can and should be dealt with quickly while longer-term restoration requires community consultation.
KEY REPLICATION FACTORS
Countermeasures that should be prepared for disaster management are roughly divided into three steps by timescale: emergency, short-term care and long-term restoration. The first two steps are handled best in a top-down manner for quick decisions, while long-term plans need to be implemented using a participatory approach for accountable and sustainable outcomes. The steps progress more effectively and efficiently if a cooperative culture exists among residents, experts, business and governments.
CONTACTS
(for data that was provided by the City of Kobe)
Yuichi Honjo, Section Chief, General Planning Division
Naoya Ando, Section Chief, Planning Division
City of Kobe
Fax: +81-78/3232-6009
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