Moving toward cities where earthquakes will not cause a grievous disaster

Abstract

Abstract In the mid‐18th century, Great Britain gave birth to the Industrial Revolution. The modern era started in Europe where there were no severe natural disasters caused by earthquakes. By the 19th century, the industrial movement had swept into Asia. In 1868, Japan began importing science and technology from Europe and USA. Subsequently, Japan's civilization, culture, and politics also changed. Over time, cities like Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya became epicenters for modern Japanese life. Although Japan has always been concerned about earthquakes, its people focused more on economic growth during the modernization process than on protecting mega‐cities from possible natural disasters. Other Asian countries also have a similar pattern of development. The Science Council of Japan, which was established after World War II, strives to help build safe and secure societies where people can live in peace and contentment. The council has frequently published important proposals on past large‐scale domestic earthquake disasters. In this paper, we propose the idea of “Moving toward cities where earthquakes will not cause a grievous disaster,” which was announced by the Science Council of Japan on August 23, 2017. The proposal focuses on large cities where people, information, wealth, and assets are highly concentrated, and aims to build communities no longer devastated by major earthquakes.

Keywords

• earthquake engineering
• grand design of Japan
• large earthquake
• resilient society
• urban disaster