Drafting of the 1968 Japanese City Planning Law

The Japanese City Planning Law, enacted in 1968, revised the 1919 City Planning Law. It has been described as comprehensive but containing defects, such as imperfect delegation of planning powers to the municipalities. Authoritative works on the history of modern Japanese urban planning by Ishida and Sorensen also emphasize the historical background of the 1968 Law, namely, a general agreement on the need to control urban development based on land-use planning and the progressive historical context. The relationship between this background and the formulation of the 1968 Law is yet to be examined. Analyses of public records, the Diet debates and newspapers demonstrate the following: first, delegation of planning powers to the municipalities, although imperfect, could have been further limited; and second, the ruling party's fear of losing the electorate's support in urban areas and the media pressure on the government made a perfunctory bill inevitable.