The Degeneration of Living Spheres

Metropolitan Creation


Part II
Blood Ties, Local Ties, and Work Ties


Chapter 10

The Degeneration of Living Spheres

Solid Phase (Showa) →
Liquid Phase (Heisei) →
Gas Phase (Reiwa)

When the shape of a town changes,
the temperature of life changes too

A town is not just about changing scenery.

That change is always accompanied by a change in the temperature of life.

Showa, Heisei, and Reiwa.

What runs through these three eras is neither an 'increase in convenience' nor the 'progress of efficiency.'

It is a phenomenon where the invisible layer called the living sphere is slowly thinning out.

People's lives are not made up solely of commuting between home and work, but have been supported by the many latent heats (Pi Π) scattered throughout their living spheres.

In this chapter, I would like to re-examine the history of the degeneration of living spheres through the changes in urban enthalpy: Solid Phase (Showa) → Liquid Phase (Heisei) → Gas Phase (Reiwa).

Three eras are quietly overlapping
within a single town

There is a scene where three time layers coexist within the same town.

●Showa = Solid Phase
Shopping streets, individual shops, neighborhood fields, family businesses, alleys, and peddlers.

Children would pass by storefronts on their way to school, and shopping was done while chatting with neighbors.

There were people cleaning in front of their houses, and the presence of adults could be felt all over town.

And the Showa-era 'goyoukiki' (order-takers) were not just delivery people.

They were like analog AIs, reading every piece of information—expressions, tone of voice, family structure, changes in weather—with their bodies to suggest products.

●Heisei = Liquid Phase
Roads were improved, transportation networks expanded, and residential areas grew flexibly toward the suburbs.

And what is characteristic of this era is the appearance of giant shopping centers (SC).

The living functions that had been scattered across shopping streets were consolidated into a single giant point outside the town.

As a result, the flow of daily life moved outward from the town, and the latent heat (Π) that had been inside quietly flowed out.

●Reiwa = Gas Phase
Online shopping, home delivery, shopping cars, and shopping proxy services.

An era where life is delivered rather than going out to shop.

In other words, it is a mechanism that supports the living sphere, which has become atomized for each household, from the outside.

Amazon is less a symbol of technology and more a 'Metamorphose' of the Showa-era goyoukiki culture into digital form.

Latent heat no longer stays in the town but has become scattered among individual households.

Degeneration is not decline, but
the disappearance of layers

When society and cities change, we often tend to talk about it in terms of 'decline' or 'hollowing out.'

But the essence is quieter and more structural.

In a Showa-era town, there were many layers of living spheres.
• Shops
• Alleys
• Signs of farming
• Family businesses
• Neighborhood adults
• Peddlers
• Small workplaces
• Local community centers

These overlapped to create a multi-point, decentralized latent heat structure that absorbed the fluctuations of life.

By the Heisei era, many layers had become regionalized and moved away from the town.

The living sphere flowed like a liquid, and latent heat no longer stayed within the town.

In the Reiwa era, life no longer has a place, becomes atomized, and the points where latent heat stays almost disappear.

Degeneration is the structural change itself, where these layers thin out and the space to absorb fluctuations decreases.

It is not anyone's fault; it is simply the fact that the times and structures have moved that way.

Solid Phase → Liquid Phase → Gas Phase
—the phase transition of cities

The history of cities
looks like the phase transition of matter.

▼ Showa = Solid Phase
• Crystal structure of family businesses, farming, and shops
• Fluctuations are absorbed within the town
• Goyoukiki supply latent heat to households
→ 'A city where life stays in town'

▼ Heisei = Liquid Phase
• Life flows widely
• A giant external center of gravity called the SC is born
• Latent heat becomes difficult to remain inside the town
→ 'A city where life flows outward'

▼ Reiwa = Gas Phase
• Scattered, constantly moving, and has no place
• Mobile sales, home delivery, digital goyoukiki
• Fluctuations go straight to the system
→ 'A city where life becomes weightless'

These three stages

Latent heat (Pi Π)
Sensible heat (Epsilon E)
Resonance rate (Rho ρ)

can be reinterpreted as the reconfiguration of urban enthalpy.

I want to regain the temperature of the solid
in a modern form

It is not that I want to return
to a Showa-era town.

The goal is not the revival of shopping streets.

I do not want to talk about peddler culture by saying 'the old days were better.'

I just want to regain the richness of having layers in the living sphere once again.

Even if latent heat (Π) is drawn outside the town, we can still scatter small heat sources within the town.

• An environment where you can work in the neighborhood
• Room for commerce to return
• Creating multiple temperature zones in the region
• Scattering small-scale bases
• A state where diverse adults are present in the town

Making peddling and mobile sales an option rather than a supplement for weakness.

This is not nostalgia, but a future where the city is not 'returned to a solid phase,' but multi-layered to match the era of liquid and gas.

It is a redesign of that.

The history of the degeneration of living spheres is
a microcosm of Japanese civilization history

The phenomenon described in this chapter is not limited to a specific town.

Many areas in the metropolitan area, many central urban areas in regional cities, and even suburban new towns have gone through the same phase transition.

Showa-era goyoukiki culture.
Heisei-era giant SC culture.

Reiwa-era shopping cars and
digital goyoukiki.

This is not an evolution of function, but an extremely quiet change where the enthalpy configuration of living civilization has simply changed.

That is precisely why, when thinking about the future of cities, I believe that re-examining this history of degeneration carefully
is more important than anything else.

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