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Still City Project



The Still City Project investigates how we can move beyond the driving forces of our modern industrialized world; infinite economic growth, technologic progress and population growth. The project is a search for the 'Still City': an urban culture that is based on dynamics that are inclusive and sustainable. The ambition of the project is to find and make the images and stories we need to construct a post-growth urban society. — read more

The Still City Project


Power to the People


Still City Tokyo


Supported by


   

Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan bows to Japanese national flag as he leaves at a news conference announcing his resignation at his official residence in Tokyo. (August, 2011)

Politics: Political Stagnation — In the last four years Japan has seen more than five different Prime Ministers take and leave office. Politically the country has been gridlocked. Politicians do not seems to have an answer to the many social and economic challenges the country faces. Decisions are postponed or are phrased so broadly that no action is possible. The alternative has been that decisions are made by technocrats removed from the realities of the everyday. Tokyo doesn’t have a shared imagination or discourse on where ‘the city’ should go, what its aspirations are, what it’s identity is. Narratives that relate communities and individuals to the city are fragmented and lack common ground. Resulting in a lack of action, a lack of new narratives wether political or cultural.

Politics: Generational Divide — At the same time there is political movement on the streets, although Japanese media are hardily reporting it. Almost everyday there are protests against the restarting of nuclear plants, with this the Japanese are breaking the taboo on protest that has existed since the 70s. Hajime Matsumoto - protest organizer and founding member of the political artistic collective 'Amateur Revolt’ (Shirouto no Ran):“What is most important is that people must get into the habit of voicing their complaints. We’ve got to stop acquiescing with passive democracy and regain true, participatory democracy. And my belief is that taking to the streets is one effective means.” There is a growing generational divide in Japan. Many of the young refuse to follow the rationale, the careers and ambitions of the old status quo. For instance the relatively young Taiwanese-Japanese female politician Renhō, made a controversial remark in the Diet (Japan’s parliament) on Japan’s ambitions: “What’s wrong with being number 2 of the world?”

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