Zoning? What zoning?

It's been rice-planting time here the last couple of weeks.


Individueal rice paddies, and fields in general, are quite small and are liberally sprinkled throughout parts of the suburbia where I live. It's quite common to see a field right next to a multi-storey apartment building or bordering a busy 4-lane city boulevard.




You can see how such a situation has arisen: Japan has been inhabited for millenia, and traditional agriculture consisted of small family opeartions that ran on muscle power. So fields were of necessity small. In recent times, as cities sprawled into the sourrounding countryside, individual fields got gradually bough up by developers, but in places there are still quite a few farmers hanging on. The usual story of suburbia. But here, with a foreigner's eye, I find the juxtaposition of modern city and traditional farming quite charming.

Zoning? What zoning?

It's been rice-planting time here the last couple of weeks.


Individueal rice paddies, and fields in general, are quite small and are liberally sprinkled throughout parts of the suburbia where I live. It's quite common to see a field right next to a multi-storey apartment building or bordering a busy 4-lane city boulevard.




You can see how such a situation has arisen: Japan has been inhabited for millenia, and traditional agriculture consisted of small family opeartions that ran on muscle power. So fields were of necessity small. In recent times, as cities sprawled into the sourrounding countryside, individual fields got gradually bough up by developers, but in places there are still quite a few farmers hanging on. The usual story of suburbia. But here, with a foreigner's eye, I find the juxtaposition of modern city and traditional farming quite charming.