Reconstructing Kobe: The Geography of Crisis and Opportunity

Review

David Edgington’s fine analysis of the Kobe earthquake (officially known as the Hanshin Awaji Great Earthquake) places the event within a wider context of urban planning and disaster planning in Japan and examines the long-term impact of the earthquake. In so doing, it provides the reader with one of the most precise dissections of the Japanese planning system that has yet been written, as well as furnishing a profound insight into the various aspects of urban Japan. -- Paul Waley ― Urban Studies, 49:1151-1153Edgington presents a richly descriptive account, based on meticulous data collection, of the urban planning and urban management aspects of Kobe’s long-term recovery from the Hanshin earthquake. The painstaking quality of the research is evident throughout the book, which imparts the key lessons of Kobe’s experience with disaster recovery. -- Keiichi Sato, University of Tokyo (Translated from the Japanese by Margaret Gibbons) ― Social Science Japan Journal, vol 14, no 2, Summer 2011This is a well-organized, well-researched, accurate account of the main issues, decisions, and processes of reconstruction following the 1995 earthquake in Kobe ... The book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake, a major event in the history of Japanese planning, as well as the largest urban disaster in a developed economy since the Second World War [until Hurricane Katrina, that is]. -- Robert Olshansky, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignThis is the first book-length study of the Hanshin Earthquake and the reconstruction response. Disaster preparedness and reconstruction is, sadly, an increasingly important area of study, and Japan has both a long experience [of], and many distinctive approaches to, urban disaster recovery and rebuilding. This excellent study of Japan’s largest postwar urban disaster is thorough, timely, and relevant. -- André Sorensen, Department of Geography and Programme in Planning, University of Toronto

Review

David Edgington’s fine analysis of the Kobe earthquake (officially known as the Hanshin Awaji Great Earthquake) places the event within a wider context of urban planning and disaster planning in Japan and examines the long-term impact of the earthquake. In so doing, it provides the reader with one of the most precise dissections of the Japanese planning system that has yet been written, as well as furnishing a profound insight into the various aspects of urban Japan.