Making Sustainable Network-Community for Refugees from Fukushima Nuclear Plant Disaster on Stable Historic Castle Town and Region

Abstract

[EN] After the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident disaster, all of the residents in the area contaminated by radioactivity and all public facilities were evacuated to surrounding regions or more remote cities on the direction of the central government. As a result, temporary housing estates for the refugees are scattered, and aged refugees still remain on these estates six years after the disaster. The town of Namie had the largest number of people who were ordered to evacuate in the evacuated area. The city of Nihonmatsu, adjacent to the contaminated area, is a typical Japanese castle town, and accepted many Namie refugees, offering temporary housing, and housing the town office, schools, hospitals, industrial sites, etc. The Fukushima Namie Recovery Project team, organized by the NPO Shinmachi-Namie and Waseda University, proposed a Network-community connecting several refugee housing estates, evacuated public facilities and other core city services. These need to be connected and their community reintegrated, in practice facilitating the “support system for the network community”. This vision of a Network-community would be adapted to the historically stable region, which includes various dispersed, aged and isolated communities. Nihonmatsu, as the Castle Town of the Nakadori region of Fukushima Prefecture, is noteworthy for its historical urban areas, old streets, lots of unoccupied housing etc. That is, it is very hard to get the people of Nihonmatsu to think optimistically about shelter for Namie evacuees. Nevertheless, areas of the Nakadori region including Nihonmatsu may cooperate with the Namie evacuees and reinvigorate the ruined coastline by means of the “Network Community” – a network encompassing various historical traditions that still exist today as regional assets; thus, the vision for the future of Fukushima is one of hope.