Chapter 20
The Reality of Urban Reconstruction and Its Challenges
Field of expertise: Civil engineering, urban planning

Katsuya Hirano
Summary
The city's reconstruction after the Great East Japan Earthquake was based on the contradiction
between the "extremely rare tsunami" and the "actual tsunami," which led to the first large-scalereconstruction under a demographic declining with the migration of the city. Various new initiatives
were implemented to rebuild the city into a sustainable, attractive, and high-quality city. In practice,the importance of coordination and total design that transcends vertical divisions was clarified.
Keywords: urban reconstruction, civil engineering, landscape and design, coordination, total
designIntroduction
I have been deeply involved in the reconstruction of Ishinomaki City and Onagawa Town in
Miyagi Prefecture. In this chapter, I back at the challenges of rebuilding after the Great East Japan
Earthquake. The following is an overview of the recovery and urban planning process's challenges,reflections, and achievements.

1: Challenges Faced by Recovery Planning after the Great East Japan
Earthquake
The reconstruction planning started with contradictionsBefore the Great East Japan Earthquake, the standard for coastal levee planning wasbasically "the best yet." Of course, due to budgetary and site constraints, not many coastal levees
could achieve this standard. Nevertheless, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami were
too huge to continue the planning policy of coastal levees based on the "best yet" policy. In June
2011, the Central Disaster Management Council, which is the highest decision-making body fornational disaster prevention policy, decided to abandon this idea of and to define Level 1 (L1)tsunamis as tsunamis that occur relatively frequently (once every ten to 100s of years) and to build
physical countermeasure such as coastal levees. For extremely rare tsunamis (once every 500 to1,000 years), the policy is to prepare for Level 2 (L2) tsunamis by focusing on evacuation. This
policy was introduced concerning the fact that it is not reasonable to take physical protection
against extremely rare disasters, the fact that the government regretted its overconfidence in1

physical protection and the fact that L1 and L2 earthquake ground motions are already used in theseismic design of bridges.
On the other hand, for the survivors, the tsunami was an actual tsunami that theyexperienced. It is difficult for them to agree on a recovery plan for a future L2 tsunami that willcause similar damage. Naturally, it was necessary to develop a recovery plan that would be safe
against an L2 tsunami. This type of contradiction between rationality and consensus-building isbound to occur in the recovery from a severe, low-frequency disaster. And so far, there is nosolution to this contradiction. The question of how people can coexist with nature, which brings
both blessings and tragedies, is a serious issue that confronts the very foundation of the Japaneseview of nature.
Reconstruction involved the movement of towns
While physical defenses such as coastal levees can only guarantee safety up to L1
tsunamis, how can we create a safe city even in L2 tsunamis? In the ria coast area, moving tohigher ground was installed, another hand, in the plain area, a high embankment road wasconstructed as a de facto two-line levee, and towns on the seaward side of the road wererelocated to the inland side.
Both of these methods were unique in that they involved moving the city and rebuilding all social
infrastructure (roads, rivers, lifelines, etc.) from scratch.
Urban planning under a declining population
In terms of recovery from a large-scale disaster, this was the first time that a declining
population was involved in reconstruction. While there was no clear system or planning technology
to deal with a declining population, the challenge was to make the area more attractive andsustainable in the future. This is the root cause of the failure of the common sense approach toreconstruction.

2: The Required Paradigm Shift
The externalities of levees
Coastal levees have a significant impact on the attractiveness of coastal areas, and manyof the L1 levees were planned to be over 10 meters high. In Miyagi Prefecture, plans were also
made to build or raise river levees at the mouths of rivers to protect them from tsunamis, in linewith the L1 levees. The higher the levees, the more safety they provide from a tsunami. On theother hand, the higher the embankment, the more significant the negative impact on thelandscape. Coastal embankments are built for safety, and as you can see from the beaches filledwith wave dissipating blocks all over the country, except for some scenic spots, they were notgenerally designed to reduce the negative impact on the landscape. If we do not break throughsuch common practices in coastal levee design, we will not recover and maintain our status as abeautiful and sustainable region.
Sectionalism from "vertical" to "horizontal
In the case of regular reconstruction, the basic principle is to restore all infrastructure
facilities in situ. As long as the scale of the project is not expanded, there are already sites

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available, and there is almost no need for adjustment. In the beginning, not only in reconstruction
but also in the era of expansion, the roles of infrastructure facilities have been divided according to
the type of infrastructure. For example, the formation of an appropriate road network was influential
in developing infrastructure such as roads, and coordination with other social infrastructure
facilities was not a significant issue. Although sometimes derided as a vertically dividedadministration, it was a good division of roles in the era of expansion.
However, the reconstruction involving the movement of towns means rebuilding all
infrastructure. For example, the prefectural government planned coastal embankments, riverembankments, and prefectural roads even for small fishing villages. The municipal government
planned projects to promote the relocation of disaster-stricken groups and fishing ports (prefecturalgovernment management for second-class fishing ports and above), all with different decisionmaking systems. This is why it took so much effort to coordinate them. Therefore, it was imperative
to switch from what used to be common practice, a vertically-integrated approach used before theearthquake, to a more horizontal approach that would unite the vertical divisions of theinfrastructure facilities.
A paradigm shift necessary for urban planning in a declining population
At the same time as this shift in thinking from vertical to horizontal, a drastic change inurban planning itself is also necessary. As typified by the recent trend of compact and walkablecities, the need to break away from automobile-oriented urban planning has become a significant
paradigm shift. For example, in concrete terms, the ironclad rule of road planning was to disperse
automobile traffic to avoid congestion. Still, in the face of a declining population, it was necessary
to tackle planning completely differently from what had been conventional, such as concentrating
traffic to support sustainability by increasing commercial potential.

3: A New Approach to Recovery Planning
Several practical and pragmatic measures were explored in response to this paradigm shift.
Balancing safety and attractivenessTo reduce the negative impact of coastal and river levees on the landscape and to makethe sea and rivers more attractive, the hinterland was raised to the same height as the levees toensure a good view of the sea, and facilities were constructed (Oya Beach, Kesennuma City,
Miyagi Prefecture; Ogatsu downtown area, Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture; Ayukawa district,Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture; Onagawa downtown area, Miyagi Prefecture, etc.). And themethod of absorbing the negative effects of levees through buildings integrated with the levees(Kesennuma City Bay District, Ishinomaki City Central District) were adopted and realized. Theembankment of the old Kitakami River in downtown Ishinomaki has also been carefully designed.
In a sense, these efforts were recognized not only by considering the levee project as a levee
project but also by coordinating with various projects.
From coordination to total design
The importance of such coordination is not limited to the levee project. In the reconstructionof Ishinomaki City, a collaborative team of civil engineers, architects, and urban planners fromTohoku University's International Research Institute of Disaster Science played a de facto

3coordinating role, sometimes going beyond vertical divisions to present a complete design forlevees, roads, square, and buildings. In the reconstruction of Onagawa town, the team played a defacto coordinating role. The rebuilding of Onagawa Town was coordinated by a team led by Mr.
Sue of Chuo Fukken Consultants CO., LTD., and the design was implemented in its entirety by theOnagawa Town Reconstruction Design Council, of which I was the chairman.
In both cases, of course, there were many regrets. Still, I believe this is a concrete exampleof the necessity of a total design implementation system with human resources that can accurately
grasp the paradigm shift and strengthen the horizontal skewers to realize high-quality urban
development with enhanced sustainability, which is necessary for urban development under adeclining population. This is a concrete example of the need for a total design implementation
system with human resources to grasp the paradigm shift accurately.
4: Achievements and the Future of Urban Planning for Disaster Recovery
Ten years have passed since the earthquake, and as we look around at the results of thereconstruction projects in the tsunami-affected areas, we can see that despite the various
contradictions and challenges, we have reached a point in developing an attractive city. At thesame time, however, we notice that there are not many cases where reconstruction has been
carried out with a new approach based on this type of paradigm shift.
In the future, it will be necessary to consider the quality of reconstruction after a large-scaledisaster, what the key points were to improve the quality, and how to improve the quality ofreconstruction further. It is also true that it is difficult to openly say that the quality of recovery inthis city is high. In contrast, the quality of recovery in this city is low, considering the survivors andthe people who made an effort. Still, if we avoid fair criticism, we will only repeat the same thing
after the next large-scale disaster. This is where I feel there is a new direction for disaster science.
In addition, this was the first large-scale reconstruction under a demographic decline. Even if public
works projects are not developed on such a large scale in general urban development, it isnecessary to discuss what can be said about general urban development under a demographic
decline. The contradiction between rationality and consensus-building, which I mentioned at thebeginning of this article, remains an essential issue, although we don’t yet know how to solve it.

Conclusion - from the author
Civil engineering is first and foremost for the public. However, as I have been working inreconstruction, I have wondered whether various researches in civil engineering are helping tosolve this problem. For example, Isamu Hiroi (1862-1928), one of the founders of modern civilengineering in Japan, apparently said, "An academic without a field is not an academic," and I feelthat civil engineering itself needs a major paradigm shift.

References
Hirano, K. (2014). Consensus Building for Tsunami Disaster Prevention Town Planning and theIssue of Seawalls in Miyagi Prefecture. JSCE Magazine, 99(9), 15-18. (In Japanese)
Hirano, K. (2014). The pathology of this country that is precipitated by reconstruction town
planning. City Planning Association of Japan, Shintoshi, 68(3), 42-44 (In Japanese)4Hirano, K. (2013). Difficulties in post-tsunami reconstruction plan following Japan’s 3.11 megadisaster: Dilemma between protection and sustainability. Journal of Japan Society for Civil
Engineers, 1(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.2208/journalofjsce.1.1_15