Regeneration of Physical and Institutional Infrastructure for Local Community

Chapter 7 endorsed that the reconstruction of safe and resilient infrastructure is the foundation of local communities, which requires the support of the government. The question is how to restore a vibrant local lifestyle in the face of the sudden loss of scale economies. It hinges on: (1) regeneration of the central business district (CBD); (2) provision of local public services, and (3) provision of interregional public services. In the rehabilitation of the city center, we noted some cases in which existing laws, such as land ownership regulations, turned out to be an obstacle for reconstruction. It took considerable time to carry out legal procedures when documents and data had been lost during the disaster and the local public administration had to work with a substantially reduced staff. The legal system should foresee a catastrophic situation, and grant emergency power to the local community in such an emergency situation. The local community should be able to discuss and reach agreement on how to provide public services. In the population-declining phase, some public services that used to be provided by each municipality as a norm in the population-increasing phase need to be merged to a joint-provision. Mergers of public service facilities require reorganization of public transportation systems. To reconstruct safe and resilient land and infrastructure, to implement a plan to regenerate CBE, and to recover necessary public services are battles against time for a local community to minimize the population outflow.