This chapter explores how the success of Grand Front Osaka validated the North Yard vision while exposing the structural influence of media power over urban planning and public opinion in postwar Japan.

2015-12-31

Because it was built over more than twenty years by gathering the collective wisdom of Osaka’s public and private sectors, it would not be an exaggeration to say that it was the finest urban planning project carried out in postwar Japan.
Even more than a year after its completion, approximately 400,000 visitors gather every weekend at Grand Front Osaka, proving this fact.
At the same time, as readers already know, this also proves 100 percent that my arguments regarding North Yard—the very reason I was compelled to step forward—were entirely correct.
I wrote recently that I suddenly realized the truth behind how the North Yard project had begun to fall into confusion in ways completely unknown to the citizens of Osaka.
What made me aware of it was an article on floor-area ratios written by Kenichi Ohmae in the monthly magazine SAPIO.
In it, he pointed out that when constructing the Nakanoshima Festival Tower, a major project on which the Asahi Shimbun had staked its corporate fate, they obtained approval from the relevant ministry to raise the floor-area ratio from 1,000 percent to 1,600 percent, even though the area was originally zoned for 1,000 percent.
He also suggested that since the ground there, being along the river, is not particularly solid, perhaps floor-area ratio and ground conditions were unrelated, and that there may have been fears about what might be written if Asahi’s requests were refused.
I fully agree that his speculation is 100 percent correct.
I will discuss this matter further later.
To state it bluntly here and now, the creation of such a structure—where a company like this could shape Japan’s public opinion—was the greatest mistake of postwar Japan.
To be continued.