Hyogo: Ahead of 30 Years Since the Great Hanshin Earthquake: Redevelopment and Reconstruction Work Complete

By Daisuke Ito / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

10:17 JST, December 28, 2024

KOBE — The final reconstruction and redevelopment project in areas of Hyogo Prefecture, which was devastated by the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, has been finally completed.

Post-quake redevelopment projects in the prefecture were carried out in six areas in the cities of Kobe, Nishinomiya and Takarazuka. All have been finished, with the last one in the area south of JR Shin-Nagata Station in Nagata Ward, Kobe.

The project in Shin-Nagata was the largest of the six in scale, covering 19.9 hectares. A total of 44 buildings were developed, including redevelopment buildings that have floors for both shops and residences. The project cost ¥227.7 billion overall.

The Shin-Nagata project promoted by the city government of Kobe has been completed with the creation of education-related facilities on the last remaining plot of land earmarked for redevelopment. This building is a nine-story facility that will house satellite campuses of the University of Hyogo and Hyogo University of Teacher Education, among others.

A ceremony to celebrate the project’s end was held on Nov. 30 in front of Tetsujin 28-go — Iron Man No. 28, also known as “Gigantor” in English — a huge monument towering in front of JR Shin-Nagata Station. Tetsujin 28-go is a massive robot depicted by the late Kobe-born manga artist Mitsuteru Yokoyama, and a life-size monument was installed in 2009 as a symbol of post-quake reconstruction.

With the Iron Man watching over the event, related officials and residents celebrated the start of a new life for the district.

Jan. 17 will mark 30 years since the Great Hanshin Earthquake.

Turns into commuter town

Before the earthquake, the area south of the station was densely populated with wooden houses and stores. About 80% of them were destroyed, damaged or burnt down during the quake. Two months after the disaster, the Kobe government decided on a redevelopment plan, which is centered on buildings with spaces for stores and residences, while a public bathhouse and a hospital are also included.

Completion was originally scheduled for fiscal 2003. However, there was a major delay due primarily to difficulties in negotiations to acquire land. The prospects for finishing became clear in 2020, after the redevelopment planned for one of the plots was given up on.

Before the quake, the area formed an industrial district with a flourishing business in chemical shoes — shoes made of synthetic leather using resin such as vinyl chloride.

In the post-quake days, however, the area turned into a commuter town. The population of the area has risen above that before the quake. The nighttime population now reaches 6,140, an increase of about 40% from the pre-quake days. The daytime population is also expected to exceed the pre-quake level. From next spring onward, there will be about 1,000 more people as the number of students commuting to schools in the area is expected to rise.

Yet the area still faces challenges. According to the municipal government, the project scale was initially decided based on the wishes of the store owners. However, many of them could not afford to wait for the project to be completed, withdrew their plans to move into newly developed buildings and left the area.

Consequently, about 60% of the 52,000 square meters of commercial floor space in the 25 buildings developed by the city remains unsold. Meanwhile, warehouses are conspicuous in the occupied parcels, leaving the whole area with shuttered shopping streets. The municipality has a deficit of approximately ¥32.4 billion on this project.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances such as the decline in land prices, we failed to meet the flagging demand,” a city official said.

Shop owners drawing town’s future

There is a younger generation of people who find the newly reborn Shin-Nagata appealing. They are striving to enliven the community with their efforts.

An eel shop has moved into the basement floor of a redeveloped building completed in 2004. In addition to offering takeaway grilled eel, Nishimura Kawauoten also operates an eel restaurant, boasting of selling thick-meat fish.

Before the quake, the eel shop was located inside the market. Daisuke Nishimura, the 42-year-old current president of the shop, was a fifth grader at a local elementary school when his father’s house-cum-store was damaged by the 1995 quake. He was forced to live in an evacuation shelter for a while.

Nishimura started seriously thinking about his town when he was a university student studying architecture. In a class held on the theme of “the redevelopment of the Shin-Nagata district,” he heard a guest speaker from some public office saying that “The Shin-Nagata area will be reborn as an ‘amazing’ town, different from its past image.”

However, reality was not like that. There were not many people walking along the streets, and the eel shop’s sales steadily declined. His father was on the verge of giving up.

“I was determined that we wouldn’t rely on the public administration but build our town ourselves,” Nishimura said.

After graduating from university, he worked for a trading company for three years, and then started helping out at his father’s store. He took over the eel shop 15 years ago. Since then, he has been working to enliven the community by organizing special fairs and holding job-experience events for children, getting neighboring stores involved as well.

Nishimura also made efforts to sell bento boxed meals for home delivery and corporate clients. His shop’s annual sales are now about seven times higher.

The streetscape he knew since childhood has changed completely, but Nishimura is positive about the town’s future.

“The redevelopment has been called a failure, but things have been gradually improving, and our town has great potential. We will envision for ourselves the future of Shin-Nagata,” Nishimura said.