The right to the city, to occupy and produce cities, is a very popular term in the Latin world, like machi-zukuri(town planning) in Japan. Squares and streets as a space of social life are the materialized right to the city for Latin people. Recently, through an intensifying neoliberal trend, the privatization and commercialization of public space, have threatened the right to the city and have been criticized(Sorkin ed., 1992; Harvey, 2012). On the other hand, in Tokyo, spectacular huge redevelopment projects are in progress in urban nodes such as Shibuya and Shinjuku(Ishigure, 2014；Shibuya Redevelopment website). Private initiatives are leading the projects, and the whole district seems to have turned into a monstrous shopping mall. If you wish to enjoy yourself and feel comfortable there, you are obliged to consume, to spend money on shopping, drinking, or eating. Curiously, there is scarce criticism of commercialization of public spaces. Rather, they are celebrated as examples of public-private partnership. Why do Japanese people welcome the private-oriented, upscale urban spaces rather than striving for the right to the city (Okabe, 2017b)?
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