City, Culture and Society 3 (2012) 73–78 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect City, Culture and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ccs Poverty, disease, and urban governance in late nineteenth-century Osaka John Porter Osaka City University Urban Research Plaza, 3-3-138 Sugimoto, Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka-shi 558-8585, Japan article info abstract Article history: On August 3, 1886, at the height of the deadliest cholera epidemic in Japanese history, Osaka Police Chief Received 19 May 2012 Inspector O¯ ura Kanetake issued an urgent memo to the heads of Osaka’s four city wards and the commis- Received in revised form date 7 June 2012 sioner of neighboring Nishinari County. Citing the immediate threat to public health and security posed Accepted 8 June 2012 by the city’s rapidly expanding ‘‘slums” (hinminkutsu), the memo outlined a plan for Osaka’s first large- Available online 4 August 2012 scale slum clearance. Characterizing the city’s slums as ‘‘dens of poverty, crime and disease,” the plan called for their demolition and the mass relocation of thousands of poor urban dwellers to a walled res- Keywords: idential compound southwest of the city. Focusing on O¯ ura’s proposal and the series of debates that fol- Poverty lowed its presentation, this article explores the manner in which disease influenced the relationship Disease Cholera between urban poverty and local governance in Osaka during the late nineteenth century. It argues that Urban governance frequent outbreaks of cholera during the 1870s and 1880s gave rise, in both the popular press and official Late nineteenth-century circles, to a discourse identifying the city’s slums as the root cause of urban epidemics. Bolstered by a Osaka growing body of scientific data suggesting intimate links between poverty and disease, that discourse supported efforts by the authorities in Osaka to permanently segregate the poor and raze the slums. This article traces those efforts from the summer of 1886, when Inspector O¯ ura’s plan was announced, to April 1891, when Osaka’s first slum clearance was executed. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction authorities vis-à-vis the urban poor. While the ultimate aim of official policies towards the poor since the Meiji Res- On August 3, 1886, at the height of the deadliest cholera toration had been the controlled integration of poor work- epidemic in Japanese history, Chief Inspector of the Osaka ers into the local socio-economic order, O¯ ura’s proposal Prefectural Police O¯ ura Kanetake issued an urgent memo sought just the opposite. In seeking to eradicate the root to the heads of Osaka’s four city wards and the commis- causes of epidemic outbreaks, he advocated the permanent sioner of neighboring Nishinari County (Yamamoto, 1982, segregation of thousands of slum dwellers outside the city. 69–70).1 Citing the immediate threat to public health and O¯ ura maintained that a massive slum clearance would help security posed by the city’s rapidly expanding ‘‘slums” to significantly bolster public health and security, while (hinminkutsu), the memo outlined a plan for Osaka’s first improving the city’s appearance.3 large-scale ‘‘slum clearance.”2 Characterizing the city’s slums This shift was precipitated by two key factors. The first as ‘‘criminal sanctuaries” and ‘‘breeding grounds of infec- was the devastating wave of cholera epidemics that struck tious disease,” the plan called for their immediate demolition the city between 1877 and 1886 (Yamamoto, 1982). During and the mass relocation of thousands of poor urban dwellers that ten-year period, cholera outbreaks occurred nearly to a walled residential compound southwest of the city (O¯ ura every year, resulting in the death of more than 30,000 local Kanetake, 1886). residents (Hayami & Machida, 2002, 178). In addition to the O¯ ura’s proposal represents a significant shift in objec- tives and strategy on the part of the Osaka prefectural 3 Contemporary news coverage of O¯ ura’s proposal indicates that by the mid-1880s, local officials in Osaka and members of the media were becoming concerned about the how the city would appear to foreign visitors. Although foreign residents of Japan E-mail address: [email protected] were prohibited from living outside areas specifically designated for their residence 1 Although the total number of reported infections in 1886 (155,923) was slightly (kyoryuchi ), many believed that the era of ‘‘naichi zakkyo” (mixed residence) was on lower than in 1879, the death toll and national mortality rate were the highest in the immediate horizon. Once foreigners were permitted to live among the general Japanese history (108,405). On August 5, 1886, the Asahi newspaper reported that the populace and freely move around the city, officials worried that they would catch a cholera epidemic of 1886 was one of ‘‘unprecedented intensity.” glimpse of slum districts, such as Nagamachi, and negatively influence their view of 2 Kato¯ (2002) uses the term slum clearance to describe O¯ ura’s plan. the city, or more broadly, the Japanese state. 1877-9166/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2012.06.005 74 J. Porter / City, Culture and Society 3 (2012) 73–78 tremendous human cost, cholera epidemics severely ham- in dismantling Osaka’s largest slum, these efforts led to the pered local commercial activity and industrial production. dispersion of thousands of slum dwellers across the city’s For example, according to figures compiled by the Osaka periphery, setting the stage for the emergence of a number Chamber of Commerce and Osaka Department of Agricul- of a twentieth-century Osaka’s largest slums, including the ture and Commerce, cholera outbreaks were responsible massive Kamagasaki day laborer district (Kato¯, 2002, 99– for nearly two million yen in losses to the local economy 101). between May and October 1886.4 As a consequence, elimi- nating such epidemics emerged during the 1880s as one of the Osaka prefectural government’s primary concerns. Poverty, disease and social exclusion The second factor behind this shift toward the social exclusion of the urban poor was the appearance of a body Nagamachi: a brief sketch of ‘‘scientific” data linking disease outbreaks with the city’s The primary target of O¯ ura’s proposal was Osaka’s poorest neighborhoods and the linked emergence of a dis- 9 course identifying Osaka’s slums as the primary source of infamous Nagamachi slum. Jutting out from the city’s citywide epidemics.5 While urban slum districts had long southern edge, the area had served as a gathering place been identified as a source of crime and social instability, for ‘‘unregistered persons” (mushuku karaninbetsu), va- the 1880s saw the rise of a discourse, in both the popular grants, and other members of the urban underclass since press and official circles, that negatively characterized the ci- the seventeenth century. This was largely the result of a ty’s slums as breeding grounds of disease and slum dwellers deliberate policy pursued by the Osaka city magistrate (machi bugyo¯) vis-à-vis unregistered persons beginning in as ‘‘carriers” (baikaisha) who spread infection as they wan- 10 dered the city begging for handouts and gathering scraps the 1660s. In addition to permitting the establishment of paper, fabric and metal.6 Employing similar images of of dozens of specially licensed flophouses (kichin’yado)in the city’s slums and their impoverished residents, Chief the Nagamachi area, the city magistrate granted the flop- Inspector O¯ ura asserted the necessity of a comprehensive house proprietors there the exclusive right to provide lod- slum clearance in the summer of 1886. ging to unregistered persons and arrange employment for ¯ them in three local industries: sake brewing, oil pressing Focusing on Oura’s proposal and the complex adminis- 11 trative process that unfolded following its official presenta- and rice processing. tion in September 1886, this article examines the manner As historian Uchida Kusuo has noted, the decision to in which infectious disease influenced the relationship be- grant those rights was strategic. According to Uchida, the tween poverty and urban governance in Osaka during the city magistrate’s office worked to concentrate unregistered late nineteenth century. It argues that frequent outbreaks migrants, who were considered a key threat to urban sta- of cholera during the 1870s and 1880s gave rise to new bility but also represented a vital source of labor for three forms of discrimination against the urban poor and of Osaka’s most important early modern industries, in a prompted the establishment of an increasingly exclusion- single area by permitting them to seek temporary lodging ary regime of local poverty management. By segregating in Nagamachi. At the same time, city authorities called the city’s poor and reconstructing the slum districts in upon local flophouse proprietors to engage in the day-to- day regulation of unregistered persons (Uchida, 1992, which they lived, the prefectural authorities aimed to 12 establish an orderly, hygienic and secure urban core in Osa- 847-851). In other words, the authorities worked to guar- ka exclusively populated by ‘‘middle and upper class antee a steady supply of labor to three vital local industries, persons.”7 while ensuring that unregistered persons remained con- Although O¯ ura’s proposal was eventually rejected, it stantly supervised. triggered a five-year debate about how to effectively ad- After the Meiji Restoration, Nagamachi expanded rap- dress the perceived threat to public health and security idly, absorbing destitute migrants and persons displaced posed by the city’s slum districts. This debate culminated following the dismantling of Osaka’s four designated hinin in the execution of a large-scale housing reform project in enclaves, or kaito, in 1871.