Knowledge economy challenges for the post-developmental state: Tsukuba Science City as an in-between place

摘要

>This paper examines the planning) history and current planning challenges facing Tsukuba Science City. Drawing on original empirical material, it suggests that Tsukuba can be seen as an in-between place in three respects. Tsukuba began life as an instance of the international garden-campus-suburb orthodoxy surrounding science spaces, and now falls somewhere in between an independent city and a suburb of greater Tokyo. Tsukuba’s predicament in this regard is intimately related to the broader policy challenges facing Japan as it transitions from a developmental to a post-developmental state. Chief among these challenges is effectively inserting a science city like Tsukuba into an increasingly globalised ‘New Argonaut’ market for skilled labour. I make use of Appadurai’s notion (1996) of ‘scapes’ to interpret Tsukuba as an in-between place but also to highlight the practical challenges of it securing a central position within the global science landscape of modernity.