大阪の文化の入れ替わりOsaka's Cultural Replacement

Under the tourism era, large-scale redevelopment across Osaka City has been carried out over a long period, but here I will focus on the area known as the “Umekita Area.” Tracing back its history, there are almost no traces that the present-day Umeda area was once prosperous; historically, Osaka’s main hubs of activity were around Tenma, where the Tenmangu Shrine (天満宮) is located, and further south in areas like Nakanoshima and Namba, where merchants lived in large numbers, engaged in economic activity, and achieved prosperity. Looking at Umeda today, it is hard to imagine, but as the kanji for “Umeda” suggests, it was once a remote area covered with rice fields and farmland, which gradually transformed into the current landscape of buildings through prewar and postwar development. Particularly after the war, the people of Osaka called Namba and Shinsaibashi “Minami” (South) and Umeda “Kita” (North), nurturing their own distinct cultures, but unfortunately, as this history and culture went unshared amid the trends of the times, they have been rapidly lost. This is the result of overtourism.

With the arrival of the overtourism era, large-scale redevelopment that set aside the previous approach of building the city for the people of Osaka, and instead prioritized a city shaped around visitors—with budgets heavily allocated toward such purposes—advanced in both Kita and Minami, wiping out the deeply rooted cultural landscapes of Osaka that had existed until then. In reality, having observed Osaka for a long time, I can say that the scenery and the presence of the Osakans I once knew have vanished, replaced by streets shaped around the flow of visitors. Confronted with this marked change in the character of the city center, I myself hardly ever go there anymore. In fact, today is probably the first time in over a year that I have come to Umeda. Many Osakans think the same way, and now they rarely go to Kita or Minami, gathering instead in quieter places that still hold the old atmosphere.

Considering Osaka’s history as the largest western base of Japan—surrounded by historic cities like Nara and Kyoto, with Tokyo to the east—it should never have lost the essential part of its culture. But sadly, the absence of leaders with an awareness of this culture meant that over the past 20 years, Osaka’s culture has been lost in one stroke.

Another long-recognized urban issue in Osaka has been its “lack of greenery.” In fact, among Japan’s 47 prefectures, Osaka has the lowest percentage of forest coverage. Historically, much of Osaka was once the sea, except for the upland area south of today’s Osaka Castle, and it never permanently hosted a court or shogunate (except for the Naniwa Palace). For example, in Kyoto, Kamakura, and Tokyo, shogunates were established and engaged in multi-century urban development under strong leaders. A representative example is Ieyasu Tokugawa’s urban plan that transformed Edo into the world’s largest city through the clever use of waterways. In contrast, Osaka had its moment of hegemony under Hideyoshi Toyotomi, but after losing to the Tokugawa in battle, it was left without a leader.

However, this was not necessarily negative; rather, it brought out the inherently autonomous nature of Osakans. As a result, Osaka has uniquely existed in Japan as a city that prospered without the need for strong leaders, with its citizens building their own prosperity. Kyoto had the imperial court, Edo had the shogunate, but Osaka thrived autonomously through the hands of merchants. Indeed, until the Sengoku period, areas like Hirano Ward in Osaka and the city of Sakai were fully autonomous cities unmatched in strength nationwide, later leading to the great development of merchants in the Nakanoshima area, where stock exchanges and merchant houses stood alongside countless theaters and entertainment venues for them.

It was precisely because of this historical and cultural foundation that, when the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 paralyzed Tokyo’s urban functions, Osaka and Kobe—unaffected by the disaster—saw the rise of a new culture known as “Hanshin Modernism” and underwent large-scale development. Yet even this historical foundation was lost in just 20 years.

In recent years, a sophistry has spread to cover up this great failure, one element of which is the push to somehow address Osaka’s lack of greenery. As part of this, a massive project known as the “Umekita Development” has been underway. As the frequent use of the word “green” in its promotional language suggests, it has been positioned partly as a green space plan for Osaka City. However, there is a major problem: early in the development, it was newly discovered that a large-scale cemetery existed on the planned site. Numerous human remains and burial goods were unearthed, but the quantity was so great that most were reburied without proper investigation, and plans to build facilities and condominiums on top of them began, most of which have already been completed. Because proper research was not conducted, the actual extent of this historical cemetery remains unknown, but it is likely that much of the Umekita area was used as a large burial ground from the Edo or Meiji periods, or even earlier.

Indeed, the name “Umeda” likely derives from “Umeta” (埋め田), meaning reclaimed rice fields, wetlands, or possibly cemeteries. This would explain why Umeda historically lacked urban functions and was instead covered in farmland. People in the Edo period believed that since it was a cemetery, developing it was unthinkable. However, with Osaka’s culture already lost and misguided decisions made by leaders Osaka never truly needed, the development proceeded unilaterally, resulting in a forced park construction. And if the aim was genuinely a green space plan, buildings would not be necessary in the first place—a large park alone would suffice. Yet Japan, now derided as a “concrete-addicted nation” (コンクリート中毒国家), remains trapped in a development-dependent system where the premise of “building something no matter what” dominates urban planning. This is a nationwide problem, not just Osaka’s.

Thus, in the midst of overtourism, Osaka’s cultural identity has been lost; the naturally strong autonomy of Osakans has eroded under tasteless leaders; and Japan’s broader dependence on concrete has combined with other factors, leaving the Umekita Area as something forcibly built atop a cemetery. To me, this looks like an attempt to conceal the real problem. For those who know this history, the Umekita Area is a place to be avoided entirely. As in Kyoto, it has been historically believed that living atop a cemetery brings some form of calamity. Therefore, those who gather in the Umekita Area or live in the planned condominiums there are people who have had no chance to learn this history, and are left with no way to prepare for whatever may happen. This is a quintessential example of cultural loss.

Just looking at the current state of the ongoing Umekita Development makes it clear that Osaka has lost sight of its future. Even walking through other major tourist areas in Osaka today, the presence of the local people has grown thin, and storefronts built around visitors have become the norm. I cannot see how this can be called Osaka’s “culture.” In this way, plans proceeded without an understanding of history and culture, and Osaka’s culture was destroyed one piece at a time, to the point that even locals have lost the will to act. This, in turn, is what has caused the decline of Osakans, who until the 1990s had a powerful drive as residents of western Japan’s largest city. When I think back to my childhood and the adults around me, including my parents, I sometimes feel nostalgic, wondering where that vigor disappeared in just about 20 years.

Even comparing population and other data, Osaka’s spirit—once thriving as Japan’s second city and fiercely competitive with Tokyo—has completely vanished, now so diminished that it is losing out to the growth of the Greater Tokyo Area (including Kanagawa and Saitama). The decline of Osaka is affecting all of western Japan, with Kobe being particularly troubled. Devastated by the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, Kobe achieved large-scale development under the banner of “reconstruction” and prospered within the Osaka economic sphere from the late 1990s, but in the past decade, the outflow of young people has become unstoppable. Kyoto faces a similar situation, with resident replacement beginning and the excessive influx of tourists driving locals away—a phenomenon common to major tourist cities worldwide, now accelerating rapidly. It goes without saying that such rapidly advancing overtourism has become a mechanism that wears away local culture rather than an economic boon, and it is becoming clear that it is beyond the capacity of national or municipal governments to solve. At such a time, citizen power would normally be needed, but in the Kansai region—Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, and Nara—where this citizen power in the form of cultural vitality has already been lost, can we really say such a future is possible?

Unfortunately, I do not believe we will have the chance to see such a wonderful future, and observing the current decline from within, from many different angles, I cannot help but feel that a major reset across Japan as a whole is necessary.