Fuki Wada: "How to Build Your Own City"

A "town" is a place where strangers meet and new encounters are born. What is needed now to make the towns we live in more vibrant?

Almost half a century after Tsunahiko Kitazawa's "How to Live in Your Own Town" (Shobunsha, 1981), written by the founder of "Editing Group SURE" and a Kyoto City Small and Medium Enterprise Consultant who walked through shopping streets in Kyoto City from the 60s to the 90s, we now have a new perspective on "shopping streets" from Fuki Wada, a female researcher born in 1996, and the urban history captured through it.
Wada, who has been involved in community development activities since her student days and specializes in urban history and architectural history, has focused particularly on the history of retail markets (ichiba), conducting interviews with local residents and researching materials. She is also in charge of the "Machi no Shindanshi Tsunahiko Kitazawa" exhibition (2025, Kyoto Institute of Technology Museum and Archive), which organizes and displays the vast amount of shopping street diagnostic reports left by Tsunahiko Kitazawa. By deciphering Kitazawa's materials as a pioneer, she has concretely clarified the origins of Kyoto's shopping streets, including the "Demachi Shopping Street."
We will share insights into the city that emerge from the ingenuity and efforts of the merchants who live there, and the changes in the preferences and behaviors of shoppers, regarding "shopping streets" that are integrated into daily life but are often not recorded by anyone due to this integration, changing with the times, and whose history tends to be forgotten. Surrounding Wada in our usual discussion format are Hajime Nakao, Mizumasa Goda, and So Kurokawa, who were involved in the operation of the legendary coffee shop "Honyara-do" which originated in the Demachi area, and the members of Editing Group SURE, who currently have their workshop in this town.

This book will help foster a perspective on the town that encourages more active engagement and allows one to view it as their own.