![]("//site-cwagnvb7.wsecdn1.websitecdn.com/uploads/o/d00a1b632d1745fea92c0c80e8dd1a76.png?v=242103032237")
In my research of and proposal for housing systems in Hong Kong, I made an argument that the laissez-faire approach to economics endemic to Hong Kong (at least up to recent years) could be leveraged to work in tandem with the standardization of quality and safety assurance to create a hybrid set of strategies in which the design of components is centralized but the outcome of their permutations and configurations is the just opposite: highly decentralized. This perhaps explains why Ohno Hidetoshi's theory on Fiber City resonates much with me. In his writings, he questions the efficacy of central planning in Postmodern and Compact City theories. Without naming the phenomenon, he touches upon how smaller satellite cities are open incorporated - even subsumed - by major municipalities in a logarithmic manner. To Ohno, mature economies such as those in Japan, the US, and developed countries in Europe are not only witnessing a stasis/equilibrium where things are stagnant but also a retreat in population growth, manufacturing, and production. Ohno promotes the return to the self-sufficiency of regional planning through examples of septic tanks and propane gas containers.
Image: Monocentric Configuration of Nagaoka - Ohno Hidetoshi
A thing of note: Ohno Hidetoshi used to work at the office of Maki Fumihiko, whom I also admire among the Metabolists. The former then went on the assist the latter in Maki's professorship at the University of Tokyo, upon which Ohno found his true calling in teaching architecture.
His website www.fibercity2050.net is now defunct, but I managed to rummage my personal library to find the manifesto as well as supporting research documents: