Many sources were drawn on in writing this book: observation and examination of what exists, written sources in both Japanese and English, pictorial sources, museums, archives, and consultation with experts. The result could easily have been a volume or two of academic research, which in itself could have been quite gratifying. But as I immersed myself in the project I soon realized that, although superb commentary by specialists in many fields existed, each illuminating a small corner of the subject, as did books for popular readership, most in the form of illustrated anecdotes about food, homes, and clothing, there was very little that described how everything fit together—urban and rural, food and waste, making and recycling, nature and the manmade—and how we might learn from it today. This “fitting together” became the overall theme of this book. Being something of a generalist myself, I felt prepared to take a stab at it, but how well I have succeeded in making the interrelationships and interconnectedness clear is something readers must decide.
Though confronted with a wealth of material from which to draw, I also gradually became aware of gaps in the existing body of knowledge of Edo life. For instance, hundreds of farmhouses from the period have survived throughout the country, and probably an equal number of urban townhouses originally built for commoners; quite a few of the best examples have been thoroughly researched, dismantled and rebuilt, and carefully preserved both in situ and in the country’s several excellent open-air architecture museums. But very few samurai houses survive anywhere, and none to speak of in what was formerly Edo, today’s Tokyo.
There are a few extant examples, however, in places like Kanazawa, as well as quite a few pictorial sources and a handful of written accounts describing the daily life of samurai. In constructing my depiction I have availed myself of as much research material as I could find on the subject. Very little of anything from the Edo period survives in Tokyo, victim to successive fires, earthquakes, bombing, and sadly, disinterest, but we have excellent detailed maps of the old city, many pictures, and lots of written commentary.
More significant perhaps is that, although actual buildings from the period and entire neighborhoods have vanished without a trace, anyone who knows how to read the townscape can still find blocks in which the scale and pattern of use that once characterized Edo, with its two-story shopfronts and back alleys, can be discerned. Many farming villages have survived with only superficial changes, however, and occupy their valleys much as they did two hundred years ago. But yet, all in all, whether one speaks of buildings or natural environments or ways of thinking and of behavior, very little of Edo survives anywhere in Japan. The change since industrialization began in the mid-nineteenth century has been too great.
Though Japan today must be credited with admirable efforts in reducing its pollution, improving the efficiency with which it uses energy, and maintaining its forest cover through regenerative forestry, and though it has high rates of public transportation use, strong standards for recycling, and excellent designs for small, resource- and energy-efficient homes, no serious observer would ever suggest that it is a model for sustainability. Though efforts are being made and things are improving little by little in many areas, there is now far too much that is done wrongly, or left undone. Though in comparison with China, Japan comes out looking pretty good, the country continues to destroy its environment in innumerable ways. What Edo Japan did well and beautifully, modern Japan either undervalues or fails to understand entirely. This is why instead of being able to illustrate valuable principles by showing how things are done now, this book tells stories about how they were once done.
Is it accurate to describe the Japan of that period as “sustainable”? Though some might say any comparison between then and now is inherently misleading, given the radically different contexts, I say emphatically: “Yes. By most of our most accepted current definitions, theirs was a sustainable society.”
According to the report of the UN’s Bruntlandt Commission of 1987, which might be credited with first popularizing the term, sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” While admittedly vague, this describes what Edo accomplished quite succinctly. More specifically, the widely acclaimed Hanover Principles for sustainable design, drafted by William McDonough and Michael Braungart in preparation for the Hanover Expo of 2000, can be summarized as follows:
• Insist on human rights and sustainability
• Recognize the interaction of design with the environment
• Consider the social and spiritual aspects of buildings and designed objects
• Be responsible for the effect of design decisions
• Insure that objects have long-term value
• Eliminate waste and consider the entire life cycle of designed objects
• Make use of “natural energy flows,” such as solar power and its derivatives
• Be humble, and use nature as a model for design
• Share knowledge, strive for continuous improvement, and encourage open communication among stakeholders
As this book illustrates, Edo-period Japan met all of these objectives, taking into account the different conception of human rights that prevailed. It achieved sustainable and renewable forestry, sustainable agriculture, sustainable architecture, sustainable city planning, sustainable transportation, and sustainable use of energy and materials. At this time, Japan lacked a global perspective, but it operated locally with no negative environmental effects beyond its borders. It sustained its high population of thirty million and kept it very stable for two hundred years.
Its technical solutions bore all of the characteristics now most sought in new designs, including low-impact materials, quality and durability, renewability, design for reuse and recycling, energy efficiency, and reducing consumption by providing group services wherever possible, as in public baths and the prepared food market. Its designs and techniques depended upon natural biological processes and solar energy wherever possible, and they closely mimicked natural processes elsewhere.
E. F. Schumaker, author of the groundbreaking Small is Beautiful of 1973, would undoubtedly have held traditional Japan up as a example of a “Buddhist economy” that values well-being over consumption. As he put it, instead of assuming that someone who consumes more is necessarily better off than one who consumes less, “since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.” Again, this accurately describes the mindset of the people of that era.
From time to time others have recognized the importance of what Japan accomplished in doing so much with few resources and with traditional means, particularly in agriculture. As far back as 1911, in Farmers of Forty Centuries, or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan, American agronomist E. F. King wrote glowingly about Japanese multicropping and interplanting, use of night soil for fertilizer, rice paddy hydraulics, and the general efficiency of farm production, which was still being carried out largely along traditional lines. The author stressed that in Japan, as well as in China and Korea, traditional methods had allowed the same farm plots to remain productive for centuries, whereas American farms were wearing out after only a few generations of use.
King’s book is now considered an early bible of organic farming, and it greatly influenced the thinking behind the permaculture movement formulated in the late 1970s
