A Strange Encounter: Shiroto no Ran Shops, the Kitanaka Shopping Street Association and a Case of shotengai Revitalization in Koenji

Traditional shopping streets in Japan (shōtengai) have been going through a long period of decline since the 1980s, and shopping streets associations’ efforts to regenerate them resulted in some cases ineffective. From the 1990s state-sponsored shōtengai revitalizing projects have been implemented with mixed results. Past literature has been documenting many cases of collaboration between shōtengai associations and external groups for the renewal of the shopping districts. This paper analyzes the study-case of Kitanaka shōtengai in Kōenji during the second half of the 2000s: here the shopping street association successfully facilitated the formation of youth-owned secondhand shops, called Shirōto no Ran (“Amateur riot”), through the engagement of young artists and activists who contributed to the regeneration of the district. The study will use local surveys to reconstruct the recent evolution of Kōenji shopping streets, and direct testimonies of the actors involved for exploring the formation of the connection between Kitanaka Shōtengai Association and the activists who gave birth to Shirōto no Ran shops.