Late 20th Century (1975–2000)

Chiba Makuhari New City

1980s– · Japan · East Asia – Japan · Garden city, decentralization, and the town-country synthesis · Planned by Chiba Prefecture
Elevated view of Kaihin-Makuhari, the planned new city centre of Makuhari, Chiba.
Elevated view of Kaihin-Makuhari, the planned new city centre of Makuhari, Chiba. · CC BY 4.0

Core idea

Convention/business district on reclaimed land

Why it matters

Edge-city mega-project in Japan

Description

Makuhari New City is a planned business, convention and residential district developed from the 1980s by Chiba Prefecture on land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay, midway between central Tokyo and Narita Airport. Anchored by the Makuhari Messe convention complex, it combines corporate office towers, exhibition facilities, a baseball stadium and the planned housing quarter of Makuhari Bay Town, laid out on a formal grid with design-coordinated residential blocks. The project exemplifies large-scale, prefecture-led development on engineered waterfront land.

Significance

Makuhari is a leading Japanese example of the edge city, an attempt to create a self-standing employment and convention centre outside the traditional metropolitan cores. Its Bay Town housing, with coordinated urban design codes and mid-rise perimeter blocks unusual in Japan, has attracted international attention, while the district's fluctuating fortunes have fed debates on the resilience of single-generation, master-planned business districts.

What shaped it

Plans it influenced

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.