Kadomatsu, Narufumi --- "Legal management of urban space in Japan and the role of the judiciary" [2017] ELECD 1111; in Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter; Emerson, Blake (eds), "Comparative Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 497

Book Title: Comparative Administrative Law

Editor(s): Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter; Emerson, Blake

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784718657

Section: Chapter 30

Section Title: Legal management of urban space in Japan and the role of the judiciary

Author(s): Kadomatsu, Narufumi

Number of pages: 16

Abstract/Description:

This chapter examines the role of the judiciary in the context of urban space management in Japan. After describing the background rules in the legal management of urban space as ‘dual partition of the common space,’ which aims at the solution for the ‘tragedy of commons,’ the chapter points out that the commons-like nature of space will nevertheless remain. The problem of landscape protection is a typical example of the residual commons. The chapter also describes three development stages of City Planning in Japan, namely the transformation from the ‘urbanizing society’ to the ‘urbanized society’ and finally in the context of ‘shrinking cities’ and proposes two models of legal governance of urban space: a ‘rights-based model’ and a ‘consultation and coordination model.’ Lastly, the chapter gives a short reflection on the role of the judiciary in the theoretical model of principal-agent relationship.