Transforming Asian Cities: Intellectual Impasse, Asianizing Space, and Emerging Translocalities by Nihal Perera & Wing-Shing Tang

Author:Nihal Perera & Wing-Shing Tang [Perera, Nihal & Tang, Wing-Shing]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415507387
Goodreads: 13711412
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Social movements for housing improvement in squatter areas

Most of the residents of surviving squatter areas belong to particular ethnic groups that have suffered a high degree of social exclusion. A closer examination reveals that most of the remaining squatter areas were those of Korean residents and that both their existence and location were deeply entwined with social exclusion. However, the residents of squatter areas did not accept discrimination, exclusion, or government programs passively. There were strong housing improvement movements in the buraku areas as well as in the squatter areas populated by Okinawan and Korean residents.

The buraku housing movement, especially in the Nishinari and Naniwa districts of Osaka, was exemplary (Figure 10.2). They demanded that the local government provide public housing or collective resettlement. In areas that were completely burned down during the war, large numbers of substandard housing units, no more than shacks, emerged. With urban renewal projects underway, the second half of the 1950s witnessed a strong rise in demands for the improvement or removal of these decrepit units. Consequently, non-buraku squatter areas with similar housing conditions were removed through compensation or forceful eviction; in buraku areas housing struggles began with the residents noticing that the mere act of living in such shacks was proof of discrimination. The Naniwa and Nishinari Housing Demand Realization League (NNHDRL) was formed by approximately 200 people in 1957. Its “Petition for Proper Housing” to the Osaka city government which outlined the following was very influential:

The landlords and city officials decided that this area constitutes an illegal occupancy and demanded that we leave. But, is it really possible to categorize our houses as illegal “occupancy?” The houses we built with tears and blood before the war were completely destroyed during the war, leaving behind nothing but cold discrimination, making this place a dark pit. Amidst the postwar confusion and ignorance of who owned these lands, we built shacks from scrap, dug out water, made larger roads, and cleansed the fire debris. However, sadly, the world looks down upon us and labels our work “illegal occupancy.” As a matter of fact, Osaka City disgracefully aggravates this cold discrimination. It has provided only 100 emergency housing units for the 10,000 houses that were burned down. Although we have been paying residential taxes and property taxes, contributing to the community chest, become members of anti-crime patrols, and created a community organization, there is still no sewage. No electricity. No telephone cables. The garbage trucks do not even pass here. The 500 households that are facing eviction have no place to go or to rely on. They will just squat again or will have no choice but to become beggars. We strongly desire to be able to live in steel-reinforced concrete public housing. We have heard that the city’s Welfare Bureau is developing buraku improvement projects, but we can only say that the Construction Bureau is just making us suffer more. We strongly want to make clear that this situation is not created by frivolous, crazy people who are selfishly squatting and up to no good.

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