Narita Airport Construction

Narita Airport Construction - The history and politics of the construction of Narita Airport. In 1962, the Japanese government began investigating possible alternatives to the crowded Tokyo International Airport (Haneda Airport), and proposed a New Tokyo International Airport (新東京国際空港 Shin-Tōkyō Kokusai Kūkō) to take over Haneda’s international flights. Initially, surveyors proposed placing the airport in the village of Tomisato. However, Tomisato residents refused to give up their land, so the site was moved 5 km northeast to the village of Sanrizuka, where the Imperial Household had a large farm. The government therefore had less difficulty placing the planned airport. Due to land scarcity and weak expropriation laws, the initial and ongoing development of Narita Airport has been the cause of great controversy. Many people against the Vietnam War saw the construction of a new airport as participation in the war effort. The Japanese government had offered to relocate homeowners in the surrounding regions. However, neighbours threatened to burn down new homes of anyone who would voluntarily move. In 1971, when expropriations began, 291 area farmers were arrested and more than 1,000 villagers and police were injured in fights. Later that year, some villagers chained themselves to their homes and refused to leave. The airport was scheduled to open in March of 1978. Shortly before its scheduled opening, a group of villagers broke into the control tower and destroyed much of its equipment, delaying the opening by another two months. In 1986, the airport authority began work on Phase II, a new runway north of the airport’s original main runway. To avoid the problems that plagued the first phase, the authorities agreed not to confiscate additional land. Residents in surrounding regions were compensated for the increased noise-pollution with home upgrades and soundproofing, although some farmers who refused to give up their land were forced to keep henhouses close to the threshold of the new runway. The runway opened in April of 2002, in time for the World Cup events shared between Japan and South Korea. Today, individuals continue to stage demonstrations regularly on the eastern edge of the airport. (Article section from “Narita Airport construction” based on Wikipedia article and used under the GNU Free Documentation License) |