Conflict, consensus or consent: implications of Japanese land readjustment practice for developing countries

This paper is relevant to the international effort to transfer an urban land development technique, land readjustment (LR), to several developing countries in South East Asia. The paper examines the model of the Japanese LR method presented by Japanese scholars and development experts to the international audience, and argues that in the context of attempts by several developing countries to adopt the method, there are several crucial shortcomings of the description of Japanese LR in the existing literature. Most important is that the history of opposition to LR in Japan is virtually ignored, and there is very little mention of the enormous commitments of local planning resources necessary to organise consent to projects. These issues are important for an understanding of the use of LR in Japan, and may also have implications for those attempting to make use of LR techniques in other countries. The paper briefly outlines the LR method and the project to export the method to South East Asia, examines the existing literature, and draws on case studies of project organising in three suburban cities in the Tokyo area. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.