The "West Shore x Shibuya" High-Quality Urban Development Forum and New Book Launch Event concluded successfully.

First, on behalf of the Consulate-General of Japan in Shanghai, I would like to express my heartfelt congratulations on the holding of the book launch event and publication of "A Sample of the City: Deciphering the Shared Nature of Shanghai's West Bank and Tokyo's Shibuya," and I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers and all those involved for their efforts.
This book praises Nikken Sekkei's interpretation of Shanghai's west bank and Tokyo's Shibuya from the perspective of "sharedness," emphasizing that revitalizing urban functions while preserving context in the regeneration of existing cities is a crucial challenge in the modern era. Using this point as a starting point, the book offers a new model for cities in both Japan and China.

We discussed how collaboration through public spaces can enhance the value of surrounding areas and generate urban vitality.
This book reviews the development of public spaces in Tokyo, points out that collaboration between the government and private sector is the core logic of urban regeneration, and uses the development of the Shibuya area as an example to demonstrate how integrating diverse public resources and optimizing spatial design can enhance the value of the area.
He said he hopes that his experience in Tokyo will serve as a reference for urban regeneration in China's "stock era" and contribute to the creation of more vibrant urban spaces.

As someone with direct experience in planning the area around Shibuya, I focused on the overall picture of Shibuya over the past 30 years and spoke about the four challenges it faced in 2005.
The problems included severe congestion due to the movement of approximately 2.3 million people, flooding during heavy rains in low-lying areas, traffic disruptions, and the aging of pedestrian overpasses. By leading large-scale infrastructure renovations, we promoted the recovery of land values, offsetting the decline in land prices after the collapse of the bubble economy, and further enhancing urban functions.
In designing public spaces, we emphasized revitalizing citizen interaction through dynamic spaces that link underground and above-ground areas, and enhanced the appeal of the neighborhood by creating landmark hubs such as elevated parks and sky plazas.
In terms of management, Shibuya has innovatively introduced a system of cooperation between the government, private companies, and railway operators, and has established a specialized management association.
By reinvesting operating profits into urban regeneration, Shibuya is being used as a model case for revitalizing the hub of the southwestern Tokyo metropolitan area.

The speaker pointed out that the core of promoting and realizing sharedness lies in foresight and a pragmatic spirit. He cited two typical US examples of SOM (Social and Community-Based Design), emphasizing collaborative models in which the government takes the lead in building the framework, companies inject resources, and communities are deeply involved. For example, in Millennium Park, through operational innovation, companies and the community jointly planned events such as summer concerts and winter pop-up workshops, transforming the space from a static landscape to a dynamic living scene. Also, in high-density co-governance in West Manhattan, a feedback mechanism was established to dynamically adjust childcare facilities according to the needs of parents, embodying the sustainability of autonomous governance. He said that in the future, he hopes that more cities will use design as a bridge to cultivate warm and inviting public spaces through co-creation and co-construction.

In the Q&A session, the focus was primarily on localization efforts. A large-scale citizen survey conducted in 2019 clarified basic needs regarding facilities such as commercial spaces, services, and transportation experiences, demonstrating how citizen needs can drive qualitative improvements in spaces. The speaker also pointed out that design needs to encompass both scene creation and lifestyle formation. Events like ice festivals and light festivals create a magnetic field effect, attracting young people and transforming public spaces into lifestyle havens. Furthermore, a social example of unemployed youth regaining hope by strolling along the waterfront highlighted the value of public spaces in strengthening economic and social resilience.

In practicing sharedness, it was pointed out that it is necessary to balance physical and technological integration with the openness of urban space. On the physical side, it was said that development of the entire area will be achieved through balancing indicators, integrating spatial structures, and coordinating traffic and greening. On the urban and architectural side, it was emphasized that the spaces above and below the platform will be open 24 hours a day and attributed to the public attributes of the city. The core of this project's applicability lies in its top-level organizational structure and planning and construction processes, and it was suggested that it can provide universal experience for urban regeneration and industrial park reconstruction.