Today, I’ll introduce neighborhood Suita(吹田市) where I now live with my parents. I think the name Suita itself is not so familiar to most people. Quite a few people are surprised to know that Suita city is the place where International Exhibition(万国博覧会) was held in 1970. Now, there is a large Memorial Park (万博記念公園) at the area where the Exhibition was held. Therefore, we can say Suita is one of the most important cities in the world!
While Suita has such a world-famous park which tends to be considered a place for special events or festivals we can’t see in daily life, Suita is also famous for its residential area where people spend their daily lives. Because of its easy access to town center and comfortable environment which is neither noisy city nor solitary country, more and more people have decided to become residents of Suita. As a result of it, empty lots have been disappearing and the number of high buildings or new houses has rapidly increased.
Under the circumstances, however, I can find old apartments which are standing among new sophisticated houses. Old apartments surrounded by high buildings are not unusual in Suita, but those old buildings are now disappearing because of the land development on a large scale. Some decrepit apartments are forced to be reconstructed. Although I am one of the residents of newly developed area, anyway I feel sad about the decrease in such old houses. People of my parents’ generation especially seem to feel sad about it because those buildings remind them of their good old days in Showa period.
Even these types of old buildings shown in the right picture used to be regarded as the most fashionable houses especially in a rapid economic growth period of Japan. However, as the times change, those houses began to be considered as old fashioned houses. At the same time, the more high-tech houses have begun to receive people’s attention. People started to demand earthquake-resistant construction, security systems, wide electrical network systems and so on. In fact, these technology have enabled people to deal with today’s unsafe and information-oriented society.
I think both old fashioned and high-tech houses have their own advantages in each of them, so I hope that Suita will become a unique city where both “new” and “old” can exist together.
However, the environment of Suita’s residential area is in fact greatly changing because of the convenient location of Suita. That’s my developing hometown!
However, the environment of Suita’s residential area is in fact greatly changing because of the convenient location of Suita. That’s my developing hometown!
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2 件のコメント:
This is probably something that's beyond my level of asking, but do you have any idea how the new developments pop up in the city? Is there a central location where they started, and the rennovations have spread out from there, or has it been relatively random thus far?
It makes me think of the rennovation that's going on in Harlem, where companies are trying to turn the area classy again by building expensive condo buildings, and trying to raise the general cost of living of the area up so as to force the poorer families out of the area.
Zoning laws are different in Japan, thus old and new, factory and house, mizu shobai and juku, rice field and highway can be right next to each other...
A nice overview of Suita. Suita is generally a very progressive community, isn't it? I have been impressed with its social welfare system and barrier free facilities.
Once again in this post you are bringing up some important contemporary issues and using your neighborhood/city to illustrate them. I might like to read more details about "earthquake-resistant construction, security systems, wide electrical network systems and so on."
On a technical note, sometimes your text appears on top of your photos. Can you fix that?
-scf
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