Public Parks and Expropriation of Land

Abstract

The expropriation of land act was proclaimed in 1889 in Japan. It was the first time that the extention of a public park was carried out in 1892 by the application of this act. After it was revised in 1900, its application was increasing in extention and newlyestablishment of public parks. From late Meiji era to early Taisyo era, we can count twenty examples. Some of them were needed as facilities in order to activiate local economy.
The city planning act, legislated in 1919 to cope with urbanization, included special provisions of land expropriation. After the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the land expropriation act was applied to newly-established parks as the undertaking of city planning in Tokyo and Yokohama.
After that, along with the outbreak of the China Incident, some of public parks and green tracts of land were established as air defenses by the land expropriation act.