震災遺構の整備プロセスにおける市民への意見聴取

<p> In this study, we examine the process for dealing with the earthquake ruins in Miyagi prefecture caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake, including the preservation, removal, and maintenance of the ruins. For this purpose, we analyzed 21 earthquake ruins, extracted 30 elements of the maintenance process, and created appropriate labels. We created time series charts and flowcharts, and extracted four stages of the preserved earthquake ruins: (a) the treatment decision stage, (b) the basic concepts stage, (c) the design stage, and (d) the operation stage. In cases where ruins were not preserved, they were divided into “inverted” and “exclusion” types.</p><p> Based on the events that occurred during the maintenance of the earthquake ruins, the time following the earthquake’s occurrence was divided into three periods: pioneering, consideration, and implementation. During the pioneering period, it was decided that the police station in Onagawa Town would be preserved as an earthquake ruin, and that a fishing vessel in Kesennuma City would be dismantled. Toward the end of this period, the government decided to support the initial cost of earthquake ruin preservation. During the consideration period, many municipalities discussed and decided on the treatment of earthquake ruins, such as preservation or removal. During this period, municipalities held a conference with earthquake ruin experts, in which each municipality decided to preserve their ruins in accordance with the values noted by experts. Finally, during the implementation period, the municipalities performed concrete reviews of the preservation and management measures. When reviewing these cases, the opinions of citizens were considered as to whether the ruins should be preserved or not. Subsequently, we focused on the citizens’ opinions in the maintenance process and organized their contents, methods, objects, dates, and so on.</p><p> Among the 37 opinions, 83% were compiled by the municipalities, while the remaining 17% were spontaneously submitted by the citizens. We created the labels “Earthquake tradition,” “Candidate selection,” and “Treatment of preservation/dismantlement, etc.” to classify these opinions. Further, there were opinions on utilization methods based on earthquake ruin preservation plans, which we labeled as “Proposal for preservation and utilization” or “Draft policy for preservation and utilization.” For the relationship between opinion content and treatment decision, we used the labels “Majority in favor of preservation” and “Preservation requested.” When preservation was excluded, the labels were “Majority oppose preservation” and “Opinion unknown,” which almost agree with “inverted” and “exclusion” types, respectively.</p><p> In conclusion, this study demonstrates that in the maintenance process of earthquake ruins, municipalities were the fundamental entity. We suggest that citizens’ opinions and the advice provided by experts may help establish a consensus on administrative decision-making for earthquake ruin preservation in a step-by-step manner. Moreover, we clarified that the treatment decision is decided based on the intention of a majority opinion from citizens. We believe there is a possibility that citizen participation at the decision-making stage may affect the design or operation stage. Further research on the relationship between earthquake ruins and citizen opinion is required to facilitate sustainable management in cooperation with citizens.</p>