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Tsukuba Science City is a center for research and education in the city of Tsukuba, located northeast of Tokyo. The idea of constructing the science city was by the late Ichiro Kono, former minister of construction, and Kniomi Umezawa, former vice minister of the science and technology agency. Another key figure for the development of the Science City is Leo Esaki. What sets Tsukuba apart from other town developments in Japan is the large scale and fast pace of its development into a place with high quality of scientific innovation.

History

In September 1963, the national government of Japan ordered the development of a science city in the area around the mountain Tsukuba. Reasons behind this decision include the overcrowding in Tokyo, the overflow of applicants to Japanese elite universities, a desire of conservative politicians to decrease the influence of liberal teachers and students, and a need to catch up with the West in terms of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, it was already clear that there was a demand for new research facilities and a fresh approach to university education. This fresh approach was prevalent in the United States; therefore, Japan's Ministry of Education decided to transfer a part of the Tokyo University of Education to the Tsukuba area. The campus of the university was modeled after the University of California, San Diego, campus. After a new university structure was introduced; the power of teachers decreased and the power of administrative management increased. Furthermore, the new structure led to better research facilities, a seperate independent research department and the implementation of a board for general policies and regulations.

In 1966, after a few years of intensive study, the government started the project by buying land in the Tsukuba area. The acquiring of land to build on was done by negotiation over prices between the government and landowners. The parcels of land with the most suitable price were purchased. This is reason for the odd shape of the government-owned land in Tsukuba; it is 18 kilometers long from north to east and 6 kilometers wide from east to west. Due to this shape walking is not common in the city.

The building of the facilities started in June 1969. The initial building plan was ten years, but in 1980 it became clear that that was not going to be case. However, in March 1980 all facilities that were meant to be build, were up and running to a certain extent.

Between 1970 and 1980 researchers and their families started to move to Tsukuba. This move brought along a bit of a culture shock for the families from Tokyo. The dirt roads and open fields were the total opposite of Tokyo.

Initially, Tsukuba was built for travel by car due to having no train station. It was actually Japan’s first city that benefitted automobile travel. In 2005, a train station was built in the city. The Tsukuba Express can take you from Tokyo to the Science City in 45 minutes.

Tsukuba Expo 1985

In order to promote the positive aspects on science and technology an International Science and Technology Exposition was held. This was a landmark for the science city. The reasons behind the expo where to establish a positive national image of Tsukuba Science City and to gain international recognition that Tsukuba was a place of Science. The Expo attracted around 20 million Japanese and foreign visitors.

Leo Esaki

Leo Esaki became the president of the University of Tsukuba in 1992. His presidency marked a new era of reform for the Tsukuba Science City. Leo Esaki is a Nobel prize winner and worked at IBM prior to becoming president of the University of Tsukuba. Unlike other Japanese university presidents he had no academic background and no former ties with the University of Tsukuba. This was part of the reason why he was chosen as president. Due to his history in the corporate world, he was able to create a climate were companies and graduate students could work together closely. When the university was founded a good relationship between the students of the university and the nearby companies was expected. However, over the years this ambition disappeared into the background. In these years there was a severe lack in interaction between the facilities of the University and the private companies in the area. This meant that there was no joint research happening. In July 1994, Esaki introduced Tsukuba Advanced Research Alliance (TARA). This is a partnership between the university, foreign researchers, Tsukuba’s national research labs, and corporate laboratories based in the city.

Criticism

From the start there has been a lot of criticism on Tsukuba Science City. The first criticism on the city was that it was not habitable. Wives of the first researchers were used to putting garbage on the side of the road in order for it to get picked up. However, this was not the case in the mid-1970s. Untill that time only farmers had lived there and they would process their own garbage into mulch. Because the garbage did not get picked up, it started smelling in the streets. This enraged the housewives and they demanded a garbage service. In order to meet the demand, a pit was dug where the waste could be dumped untill a garbage service would be developed in the city. It is important to note that in the nineties Tsukuba had the most innovative garbage system of Japan.

Another criticism levied by national government critics is that Tsukuba Science City is a waste of taxpayer's money. They also believe that Tsukuba is an example of government control of academic and research organization. In addition, social critics feel that Tsukuba's social organization is unfavorable as it lacks traditional Japanese culture.

In Garner the city is described as being ‘flat’ due to a lack of city life. Even though Tsukuba Science City has an impressive number of research and development facilities as well as a large number of companies it still is not able to reach the same level of innovation as science cities that do have stimulating city life. However, this might be changing because in 2006 Tsukuba Science City started focusing on creating more city life.