In the decades around 1600 Japanese warlords laid out several hundred jokamachi — towns planned outward from a stone-podium keep in concentric, status-graded wards: samurai quarters nearest the castle, then merchant and artisan blocks (machi) of narrow deep plots with machiya townhouses, then temple districts on the edge as a defensive screen. Streets were deliberately offset and dog-legged to break cavalry charges, and rivers and canals were re-cut for moats, water supply and freight. Construction was post-and-beam timber with joinery rather than nails, clay-and-plaster infill, tile or shingle roofs, and mud-plastered dozo fireproof stores. Repeated conflagrations produced firebreak strips (hirokoji), tiled-roof mandates and fire brigades.
The jokamachi is one of history's largest programmes of planned town foundation and produced the framework of most modern Japanese cities, Edo-Tokyo included. Its graded wards, deep narrow machiya plots and firebreak streets still explain Japanese block structure, land subdivision and rebuilding culture, and the demountable timber frame supports a habit of continuous replacement rather than preservation.
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