Support Yellow Arahama (黃色手帕大作戰)

Open Letter to Sendai city government in Japan,

Dear Sendai city government

We are professionals and scholars from the Pacific Rim community, including Taiwan, US, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, etc. We believe community-based design and planning is the best and only way to better built environment for and of the people.

Recently, we have been deeply concerned about the ongoing post-earthquake reconstruction in Japan, especially the case of Arahama in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture. We’ve learned that a wide range of communities were forced to relocate collectively due to their homeland being designated as disaster-zone neighborhood, an area of 700ha. Though we can understand that the relocation is arranged with concern for safety and efficiency, we strongly oppose this kind of forced-relocation regardless of local community’s will and complex needs. Plenty of previous reconstruction cases over the world have made it clear that what people need to survive and thrive as communities is much more than houses. Place matters in sustaining community network and human beings’ attachment with locality and spaces. A convenient removal of neighborhoods from bay area to high lands without the consent of the residents could become violence and cause serious aftermaths such as loss of jobs and industry, stress, suicides, disruptions of social relations, etc., if not paying attention to histories and geographies of community. Moreover, tremendous social capital can be lost and may be irreversible in the careless relocation process.

We’ve learned that communities in Arahama are acting out to express their opposition to the government-led relocation. They are calling for a more caring plan that integrate community economy and rehousing with respect to Arahama community’s long-existing cultural practices and affections for ocean. We are deeply touched by their call and the "yellow handkerchief, " an evocative symbol used by Arahama community to flag an urgent signal to the world. In writing this letter, we want to express our support to the community. Please listen carefully to the people who are desperately longing for conversation and a community-based reconstruction to replace current top-down relocation. We respect all of your continuous efforts in reconstruction. However, it is more important to do things right rather than do things fast. We believe that by working with community Japan can present to the world again its tenacity and dignity.

Sincerely,

Pacific Rim Community Design Network1（環太平洋社區設計網絡）

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About Pacific Rim Community Design Network

In countries and regions across the Pacific Rim, participatory community design has become an increasingly important component of the urban planning and design process. From advocacy planning and citizen participation developed in the United States, models of participatory community design now can also be found in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, specifically in forms of the Machizukuri Movement in Japan, Community Building Movement in Taiwan, and an emerging challenge to the top-down urban planning and redevelopment process in Hong Kong.

The Pacific Rim Community Design Network was launched following a working conference at University of California, Berkeley in 1998. Titled "Coastal Echoes: Democratic Design in the Pacific Rim," the conference brought together leading community design scholars and practitioners from Japan, Taiwan and United States. The purpose of the conference was to provide the practitioners and scholars working in the field of participatory design and planning across the Pacific Rim region with an opportunity to share and compare each other's experiences and advance their practice and research.

Through conferences and joint projects, the network has provided a vehicle for collaboration and mutual support, as well as a forum for comparative understanding of community design in the fast changing political and social context of the Pacific Rim.

環太平洋社區設計網絡成立於1998年，在一個舉辦於加州大學柏克萊分校的會議「海岸迴聲：環太平洋的民主設計」（”Coastal Echoes: Democratic Design in the Pacific Rim,”）結束後，一群主要來自日本、台灣、美國、致力於社區設計領域的學者和專業實踐者發起了這個網絡召集，透過定期會議交流、合作計畫，環太平洋社 區設計網絡期望能促進有志參與式設計和規劃的跨域、跨境交流，分享經驗，促進彼此的專業實踐和研究，形成討論平台，使社區設計在這個政治和社會脈絡均迅速 變遷的環太平洋區域保持能量。十多年來成員持續增加，香港、韓國、泰國、加拿大也陸續有新成員參與。

webpage: http://faculty.washington.edu/jhou/pacrim.htm