A case study of flood control schemes for the Kakehashi river and their socio-cultural consequences
SUMMARY This paper is concerned with a twenty-five year campaign against the relocation of the Komatsu-Tenmangu shrine as a result of the enlargement of the Kakehashi river. The Komatsu-Tenmangu shrine is an important cultural property of Japan, and was constructed by Toshitsune Maeda, the third dynasty of the Kaga clan in 1657. It is suggested that the primary reason why it took so long to settle this issue is a flaw in our social system for managing public works. It is concluded that preservation of cultural property is not always contrary to land development, and that the proposed procedures or something like them must be put into practice for the real expansion of our culture.
Sen’s capability approach applied to the identification of new heritage value: empirical study on the effects of flood control project
The effects of the flood control project of the Kakehashi River on the heritage value of Komatsu Tenmangu (a Shinto shrine) in Japan are analyzed in terms of Amartya Sen’s capability approach. The shrine was founded in 1657, and its main buildings are nationally designated “important cultural properties” such that its historical location is to be conserved by an embankment encircling the shrine. Qualitative and reflective exercises of the shrine’s functionings revealed a new heritage value in which intangible cultural heritage of traditional ritual and currently forgotten memories of political thought were embodied in newly found tangible heritage such as the consistent positional patterns of the shrine buildings in relation to the winter solstice sunrise and to the 15-story stone tower. The article also clarifies the rationale for an adequate buffer zone around a historic place by explaining how the risk of external diseconomy inflicted on the shrine entity’s capability was dealt with in a precautionary way.
Computer Simulation Modeling
Computer simulation as a research methodology is presented as the intersection of modeling, simulation, and computer analysis. Five component parts of simulation models are identified: input variables, output variables, assumptions, algorithms, and parameters. Computer simulation (CSM) has two primary uses for those interested in the study of organizations or who work within them: theory development and policy planning. The advantages and disadvantages of CSM for each of these purposes are examined and recent examples for each are explored.