Japan's greatest Boondoggle - white elephants of Nippon

[Catoneinutica]

delapated hotels, derelict theme parks and that big frankenstein coal building
http://www.archi-map.net/~tks_design/jp_fukuoka/shime.html
http://home.f01.itscom.net/spiral/newkomagari/newkomagari01.html
http://home.f01.itscom.net/spiral/kouga/kouga1.html

Thanks for the links, Buraku. That coal building looks like some grim alien artifact hulking menacingly at the edge of town. It'd be weird to have to look at that every day.

-catone
-used to drive by the old KingDome in Seattle every day

[Buraku]

111
Sea-gaia world an artifical beach that would put Miyazaki on the map, the only trouble is a real free beach is only a few metres away, the man-made beach with artifical waves is suffering from debts of over 276 billion yen

112
More common than the bridge from nowhere to nowhere is the 'road to nowhere', the Japanese public works projects are know for their literal impersonations of that talking heads song. Sometimes you'll find roads in the Japanese countryside that start in the middle of nowhere and then suddenly stop, street signs for streets that don't exist or traffic lights directing non-existing traffic from a river....my guess is that these odd and strange faetures are parts of the J-govs unfinished construction projects

[james]

Ok, here it is again, moron, just for you: thy moron hath spoketh.

ok, so you're what, 14 and a slow learner?

[Buraku]

[dimwit]

113
Russian-Japanese pipeline, Japan leaders understand the need to get a secure energy source away from all that middle east oil, but instead of investing in tidal energy, good nuclear plants, solar power...the Japanese seem to be looking north to a pipline that will allow the oil money to flow inbetween Moscow and Tokyo...what's the problem here ? Russian relations ain't exactly the best, they have island disputes and Putin tried to put a new bag limit on J-fishermen

114 etc...

[quote="Monty Python"]
Tourist: Well I saw your adverts in the paper and I've been on package tours several times you see, and I decided that this was for me

Bounder: Ah good

Tourist: Yes I quite agree I mean what's the point of being treated like sheep. What's the point of going abroad if you're just another tourist carted around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Coventry in their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their ‘]

For more of the same.

http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode31.htm#7

[Buraku]

For more of the same.

http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode31.htm#7

fantastic

[Buraku]

I read about a crazy J White Elephant this week - not sure of the English name so I'll have to look it up again on google

[Buraku]

115
Door to nowhere, a weird kind of architecture by the Japanese where you see a door stuck up in the middle of nowhere
like ontop of the slated roof of a building or a door going to frash-air on the outside the third floor (suitable for kamikaze Japanese that are too lazy to go up to the rooftop)

You can see a group of people standing next to the door-to-nowhere on the pic in the bottom left (green building)
thoughts are that billions of yen have been wasted in the shady construction of houses in Japan

116
Japan's Moonbase - a very similar plan to Plan Bush to Mars, this time its by the Japanese to Mo'Concrete the Moon

[Buraku]

any suggestions guys ?




Here's one:
Japan's Biggest Museum Opens With No Works of Its Own

After three decades and 35 billion yen ($289 million), Japan's newest and biggest art museum opens in Tokyo on Jan. 21. Does the capital really need another art venue?


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aSfbfcZahU_8&refer=home

If the museum looks like a lavish white elephant -- another state building project planned in the dark days of the recession to help revive the economy -- don't be fooled. A savvy exhibition strategy, an innovative facility and enjoyable attractions may delight rather than drain the nation's taxpayers, creating a new Mecca for Tokyo's avid museum-goers.

[Buraku]

Japan's Failures Should be Warning to Korea's Developers
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200702/200702050030.html

The small city of Yubari, nestled in a valley on the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan, may be familiar to some of us because of the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival. Last year, Yubari's government declared bankruptcy thanks to huge debts incurred by a poorly managed coal museum and the construction of a ski resort.

The city's economic failure shows that a local autonomous government can suffer the same fate as an insolvent business. In this regard, the city is undergoing a painful restructuring, slashing the number of the government officials by half, merging school facilities, drastically raising public utility fees and placing the municipal hospital under private management.

There are a lot of local governments in Japan that have wasted taxpayers' money with large-scale development projects. The Seagaia Ocean Dome in Miyazaki Prefecture was built in 1993 with a joint investment by the local government and private enterprises. The indoor water resort, 300m long and 100m wide, can accommodate 10,000 visitors at a time. It once enjoyed a fame full of superlatives, but it ended up incurring enormous debts because the project was pushed through without an adequate feasibility study. At long last, it was sold to an American investment company for one-tenth its construction cost. Huis Ten Bosch, a reproduction of a Dutch city, is a theme park built by Sasebo City in Nagasaki Prefecture. It, too, went bankrupt after building up debts of over W2 trillion as of Feb. 2003.

Osaka, Japan's second largest city, has built a large trade center and an amusement park in an effort to attract tourists and position itself as an international trade city. Currently the trade center houses miscellaneous shops, not large enterprises. The amusement park is rusting. ...

Not all local tourist projects broke down. Despite its small size and isolated location on the northernmost tip of Japan, Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, draws more visitors than the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo....At present, there are similar tourist projects underway across Korea that resemble those of Japan in the late 1980s. Some are super-size projects that will cost hundreds of billions or trillions of won. No matter how much money is invested, resort development projects that ignore regional characteristics or are too similar to other projects will never pay off. This is the lesson demonstrated by Japan, which once was a republic of resorts.
. ....

Future white elephants ?

-Outsourcing bad loans and boondoggles ?
Japan may offer a yen loan of about $2 billion for the Delhi-Calcutta and Delhi-Mumbai phases of the railway freight corridor project, according to senior officials of the Railways.
-Or maybe 'CO2 Climate change' turns Sapporo's acclaimed Snow Festival into one big white elephant ?

[Tsuru]

115
Door to nowhere, a weird kind of architecture by the Japanese where you see a door stuck up in the middle of nowhere
like ontop of the slated roof of a building or a door going to frash-air on the outside the third floor (suitable for kamikaze Japanese that are too lazy to go up to the rooftop)

You can see a group of people standing next to the door-to-nowhere on the pic in the bottom left (green building)
thoughts are that billions of yen have been wasted in the shady construction of houses in Japan

116
Japan's Moonbase - a very similar plan to Plan Bush to Mars, this time its by the Japanese to Mo'Concrete the Moon

Is that Chubu kokusai kuuko on the top right?

[Buraku]

Is that Chubu kokusai kuuko on the top right?

I think it was KIX, the airport nobody uses but still has a damn queue. I've heard new Chubu kuukou is good place but not sure about the outrageous price-tag.

[Tsuru]

I think it was KIX, the airport nobody uses but still has a damn queue. I've heard new Chubu kuukou is good place but not sure about the outrageous price-tag.

It is a nice place Better still, Chubu learnt their lessons from Kansai and financially the airport has been in far better condition from the ground up... lower landing fees, it's relative proximity to Nagoya compared to KIX's distance from Osaka, a more compact, more attractive terminal with more things to do for pax ... But I posted that before somewhere.

Airlines are flocking to fly there, particularly those who previously pulled out of Komaki after 9/11.

[Buraku]

J-Cops newest project - is it a White Elephant contender ?


Could the J-Cops latest xenophobic mission be considered a white elephant seen as most of the crime in Japan is by Japanese Yakuza, corrupt Japan Cops, Japanese politicans et cetera


Upping the fear factor
By DEBITO ARUDOU
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070220zg.html
Open flew the tax purse strings: After Tokyo Gov. Ishihara claimed (with evidence unclear) that "even the yakuza are scared to enter lawless Kabukicho," it became Japan's first neighborhood with universal surveillance cameras. Likewise the NPA's research institute landed boondoggle money for "foreign criminal DNA analysis" at crime scenes (Zeit Gist; Jan 13, 2004). Despite criticism from the United Nations, the Immigration Department launched online "snitch sites" (Zeit Gist; March 30, 2004), where anonymous xenophobes could rat on a foreigner for any reason whatsoever.

[Buraku]

[Buraku]

Major condominium builder Haseko Corp said Wednesday it will construct Japan's tallest condo in the city of Osaka in cooperation with nine other companies.
The 54-story, 209-meter-tall condo, to be called "The Kitahama," will be built in March 2009 on a lot vacated by a department store operated by Mitsukoshi Ltd. near the Osaka municipal subway's Kitahama Station in Kita Ward. The condo units will be put on sale in September.

[Buraku]

Beware of White Elephants
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200705/200705210034.html

....just building a high-riser and calling it a world trade center does not guarantee the local economy will benefit nor that any world-class businesses will simply gravitate there on their own. A case in point is the Osaka World Trade Center in the second largest city of Japan. Though touted as a success story among the heads of Korean local governments, in Japan it is cited as a typical white elephant.

Announcing its ambition to become an Asian trade hub in 1990, Osaka unveiled plans for a 33-story world trade center building. Conscious of other cities in the region, the mayor increased the number of stories of the building to 55, bragging how it was the tallest building in western Japan.

The Osaka World Trade Center was completed in 1995, but only a handful of Japanese corporations moved in, and not a multinational in sight. In the end, over 70 percent of the space was occupied by city-related institutions, to the point where it was derided as a second Osaka city hall. The Asia and Pacific Trade Center, which was built at around the same time, is also occupied not by trading businesses but logistics- and welfare-related institutions, and as a result faces bankruptcy from accumulated deficits....

[Typhoon]

JETRO. Japanese External Trade Organization.

Make work project for unemployed and unemployable middle-level managers stuck in an 1980's Japan economic bubble mentality.

When I met with them in Osaka, I think that they were located in or near
the World Trade Center. Appropriate. Moved since.

[FG Lurker]

Beware of White Elephants
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200705/200705210034.html
[Osaka WTC/ATC]

I love how your photo was so tightly related to the subject of your post.

The Osaka WTC/ATC were major fuckups. The idea was that they would spur development of the area into another Osaka centre of business. A range of factors lead to this not happening.

One was certainly the economy at the time the building was completed.

Another was the chosen location, which was a terrible decision and too far from anywhere that matters. Way too far from the Shinkansen, just as far from Itami airport, and even worse to get to KIX. Who the hell builds a "trade center" so far from transportation hubs!?

Certainly another was the horrible system of transportation in and to the area itself. The closest subway station is Cosmo Square, but until recently it cost an additional 230 yen to reach that station from the one previous to it. You didn't have to change trains, but Osaka City decided it was a separate line and charged a ridiculous fare for the 2 minute ride. When you consider having to pay monthly teiki-ken for 100 - 1000 workers the extra cost was not small, often eating up a considerable portion of any savings companies would have realized with lower rents. Cosmo Square is also rather far from the WTC. You can either walk or you can change to a bizarre wheeled train/tram thing that takes you closer. Why the hell they built a massive tower with no proper subway station is beyond me.

The WTC building itself is very nice though, and a pleasure to work inside. In the past couple of years there has been more development in the area, and if this continues to happen then the ATC/WTC ideas may prove themselves eventually. For the last 10 years though they have been nothing short of disasters.

[Buraku]