Page 88 - JCAU-5-1

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Revitalization through community empowerment

related concept of empowerment, is a tradition rooted in 2.3. The practice of community empowerment
Western democracy that cannot be betrayed (Burke, 1979; Japan is the birthplace of community empowerment
Fagence, 2014). (machizukuri) in East Asia, and much attention has been
In the East Asian world, community empowerment is paid to it in the academia. The prosperity of community
problem-solving oriented. In the regions where the concept empowerment in Japan is not accidental, but is based on
of community empowerment first emerged, such as Japan its specific spatial unit – machi. Japan’s urban structural
and Taiwan, community empowerment aims at narrowing tradition is patchwork, and the modern machi has local
the urban-rural gap, saving local culture, solving ecological attributes, small-scale communities with social and
crisis, and so on. As a community building practice or functional diversity, which provide a place for community
social movement, community empowerment has played an empowerment (Hein, 2008). It has undergone three waves:
important role in promoting the development of economic the first wave originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
and social transformation in Japan and Taiwan (Wang & roughly the same time as the rise of participatory planning
Liu, 2022). in Europe and the United States; the second wave began in
In China, research on community empowerment is the mid-1980s and centered on community participation,
mainly within the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, highlighting collaboration and co-creation; and the third
political economy, and architecture and planning. The wave began in the late 1990s and tended toward regional and
sociological perspective focuses on the construction and community management, working together to solve urban
maintenance of social network capital, which scholars problems through multi-actor participation (Satoh, 2019).
believe that it is not only creating a “community” but Some scholars argue that the development of community
also creating a “new society,” a “new culture,” and a “new empowerment in Japan is directly related to the bursting
people” (Chen, 2005; Luo, 2004). From the perspective of of the bubble economy, where many public affairs had to
anthropology, community empowerment aims to build be solved by society from the bottom up (Sorensen, 2007).
a sense of community by establishing emotional ties Community empowerment activities in Japan have
between people and their environment based on local developed in a rich variety of scenarios, resulting in many
identity (Zeng, 2007). In the political economy perspective, experiences that are applicable to different situations.
measures to revitalize community resources focus on For example, as an earthquake-prone country, Japan’s
community empowerment and collective community post-disaster reconstruction has been characterized by a
actions (Zhan, 2004; Wang, 2016). The perspective of gradual revitalization of the community through the care
architecture and planning focuses on the articulation of of social workers and the mutual help and empowerment
hard and soft community construction and the esthetic of people (Araki, 2013); Japan is responding to the severe
design of its living space, and considers community aging population through an increasing number of
empowerment as a practical activity of spatial planning community empowerment activities, rather than relying
and design transformation that fits values, mechanisms, on existing social pension programs (Inaba, 2016); and
and functions (Chen & Yan, 2014). Japan is responding to community decline and the need
Local revitalization is a specific purpose of community for sustainable tourism development through community-
empowerment. By proactively exploring and managing based tourism (Hiwasaki, 2006). The current machizukuri,
local characteristics, it enhances local (economic) vitality while diverse in form, has three main strategies – building
and helps build shared values and community capacity consensus among residents to voluntarily adhere to
in the region. Under the perspective of endogenous regional development guidelines, presenting a unified
development theory – centered on residents, Fan & Wang face for external negotiations, and working with good
(2020) argue that the experience of local revitalization can government to ensure legitimacy and access to resources
be summarized as follows: revitalizing local industries are (Sorensen et al., 2008).
the understructure, leveraging resource advantages is the In addition to Japan, other regions have also produced
ground, cultivating social power is the key, and innovating rich experiences in community empowerment. Community
governance mechanism is the guarantee. empowerment in both South Korea and Taiwan has
Community empowerment is an important way for gone through a process from government-driven to
community revitalization. This paper takes resource- resident-initiated. Unlike other regions where community
depleted communities as a common type of communities to empowerment activities originated in cities, community
be activated and explores how community empowerment empowerment in South Korea began in rural areas (Brandt,
can play a role in the process of rejuvenating the vitality of 1979). In the 1970s, to solve the huge urban and rural gap
such communities. in South Korea, then-president Park Chung-hee started the

Volume 5 Issue 1 (2023) 3 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0351