Reborn from the ashes of war: Hiroshima’s post-war identity and the social effects of its reconstruction

Today, Hiroshima is a city synonymous across the world with the destructive power of nuclear warfare. However, there is more to the city than this history of devastation. In 70 years since the day Little Boy exploded over the city on 6 August 1945, the city has rebuilt itself and its identity (Saito, 355). Now home to 1.2 million people, the city has become one of Japan’s most important economic and tourist centres reflecting an alternate story of reconstruction and resilience (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023). This story of rebirth is what Hiroshima’s modern identity is based on, and what the city’s post-war reconstruction and urban-planning revolved around (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023). The ideals reflected in Hiroshima’s current urban layout consequently emphasise peace and pacifism, community-driven reconstruction, and environmental protection. 

This focus has resulted in a city with a very different social identity and level of social cohesion that is commonly referred to as exemplary by the World Bank for other urban reconstruction projects in war-torn areas across the globe (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023). While striving for such a ‘sustainable’ and ‘egalitarian’ city however, these ideals also have had a deep impact on memories of the war and the atomic bombings of 1945 in Hiroshima, Japan, and beyond. By emphasising a notion of the city’s and Japan’s re-birth after the war, the city also problematically obscures non-Japanese histories of the bombings, particularly of allied POWs in the city and Korean hibakushas (survivors, or bomb-affected-people) which comprised 10% of those who survived the bombing (Clausen, 2015). What has resulted is a city that, in social terms, is progressive by urban-planning standards, but also exclusionary in its post-war identity to its non-Japanese population.

The ideals and realities of Hiroshima’s post-war reconstruction

When the allied forces started their occupation of Japan in late 1945 the fate of Hiroshima remained largely open. With most Japanese cities having been devastated by highly destructive American bombing campaigns throughout the war, it was uncertain whether Hiroshima could be rebuilt at all (Hiroshima Reconstruction Planning, 2019). However, with special reconstruction funds provided by the Americans and the desperate need for housing across post-war Japan, Hiroshima’s reconstruction process started almost immediately after the end of the war. What was outlined by Hiroshima’s City Planning Commission was a city defined by vast green spaces, public parks, sustainable housing, and memorials to the bombing (Hiroshima Reconstruction Planning, 2019). This was to establish post-war Hiroshima as a new city whose history started on 6 August 1945 and was defined by peace and humanistic ideals.

Accordingly, riverbank greenbelts lined with cafes were planned and constructed, alongside three vast parks, the Chuo Park, Nakajima (Peace Memorial) Park, and Higashi Park all covering an area of 101.2 hectares, and 40 smaller parks (Hiroshima Reconstruction Planning, 2019). With the planning commission explicitly stating its desire to “beautify the waterfront city”, the aesthetic, sustainable, and human-friendly goals of the city’s reconstruction are immediately clear (Hiroshima Reconstruction Planning, 2019). Furthermore, this adaptation of nature and greenery into the city centre shifted the urban fabric of the city with a new emphasis on urban regeneration through riverfront development that widened streets and involved significant flood control improvements (Hiroshima Reconstruction Planning, 2019). Even today, the city commits itself to these ideals and was designated in 2018 by Japan’s national government as a “Sustainable Development Goals Future City” that promotes environment-friendly planning, greater social equality, humanitarian aid, and ending urban poverty (SDGs and Peace, 2018).

In terms of tourism too, these greenbelts were hoped to be particularly attractive for visitors to reintegrate Hiroshima as a major Japanese city (Zwigenberg, 2016, p.618). While pre-war tourist guides to Hiroshima had primarily encouraged tourism to military memorials and sites like Emperor Meiji’s castle, victory gates, or the large military cemetery, as early as a 1948, guides shifted attention to ruins of the atomic bombings like the Commerce Promotion Hall (now the centre of the Peace Memorial Park), the former Aoi bridge, or the Osaka Bank ruins (Zwigenberg, 2016, p.628). Claiming that “out of the ruins our new tourist resources have emerged” it is immediately clear that after 1945, Hiroshima’s urban and local identity had shifted completely (Zwigenberg, 2016, p.628).

This process is also reflected in the urban reconstruction of the city, particularly at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Here, remembrance and peace education are the defining features of the city’s identity (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023). The park includes various ruins that survived the bombing including the Atomic Bomb Dome, as well as a museum on the history of the bombing (UNESCO, 2009). With its various memorials and peace ceremonies, the park reiterates Hiroshima’s commitment to being a city of peace that, born the destructive forces of World War II, ensures equality and mobilises the city’s inhabitants for pacifist efforts (Van der Does, 2023.; Pablo & Akiyama, 2023.)

Ultimately, Hiroshima’s reconstruction reflects a significant effort to reform the city’s identity following the devastation of the atomic bombing. On the one hand, the new city begins its history on 6 August 1945 to frame itself as a city committed to peace, pacifism, and equality (Van der Does, 2023). On the other hand, Hiroshima has expanded on this to make itself a front-runner in creating a city defined by sustainability, community needs, and social justice through various urban regeneration projects that make the city greener and more human-friendly (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023).

The Atomic Bomb Dome in the Peace Memorial Park. Once a densely populated area, this space now defines the city’s post-war identity by commemorating the victims of the bombing in a vast park (UNESCO, 2009).

The impacts of this reconstruction on social equality and cohesion

As a result of these idealistic goals of reconstruction, Hiroshima has become a city with a unique sense of social equality and humanitarianism. This has resulted in a positive impact on the city’s urban social culture and cohesion, especially in limiting economic inequality (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023). Nonetheless, due to the way the city’s identity is framed and linked to a particular, collective peace-orientated history of the atomic bombings, the city has also proven to be exclusionary towards non-Japanese identities of the city (Zwigenberg, 2016, p.622.; Clausen, 2015). As a result, while Hiroshima is highly progressive when compared to other urban centres in fostering social equality, more has to be done to ensure social cohesion and a more inclusive local identity.

In terms of fostering greater social equality, a significantly positive impact of the reconstruction ideals was the immediate focus on the construction of affordable housing (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023). Especially following the 1960s when Japan’s post-war economic growth caused rapid economic growth, the government swiftly responded to the growth of informal shanty towns alongside Hiroshima’s riverbanks and outskirts by constructing public housing. By incentivising these urban-poor demographics to move and providing flexible move-in criteria, within a few years 70% had relocated into this affordable housing (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023). The former shanty town areas meanwhile were repurposed into additional green spaces for the enjoyment of locals and tourists (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023).

Building on pre-war desires to improve the quality of urban life through road widening schemes, more greenery, and a reduction in population density, Hiroshima has since significantly improved conditions within the city. Alongside post-war ideals of greater equality, Hiroshima also emerged as a facilitator of rural access to education and financial institutions concentrated in urban centres: public transportation networks were consequently constructed with the specific goal of connecting the city centre with suburban areas on the city’s peripheries (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023). Hiroshima’s city council has also incentivised community groups to help mitigate flood damage in different neighbourhoods to realise its ideals of social cohesion and community-based revitalisation (Pablo & Akiyama, 2023). It is therefore clear that as a result of Hiroshima’s post-war ideals, social equality and justice have significantly improved within the city, resulting in a tangible increase in social welfare. Compared to other Japanese cities rebuilt from post-war destruction, like Tokyo which experienced devastating fire-bombings throughout the war, where old street layouts were largely maintained and pre-war local identities were retained throughout reconstruction, Hiroshima’s pairing of a new post-atom-bomb identity and abandonment of pre-war urban layouts outside of memorial spaces created a deeply unique city (Al-Bayati, 2023).

Hiroshima with the Atomic Bomb Dome, modern high-rises, and greenbelt lining the riverbank reflects its reconstruction ideals of sustainability, peace, and social equality (Wikimedia Commons, 2019).

While the city’s emphasis on peace-building and education has successfully conveyed important messages promoting pacifism and disarmament, the way Hiroshima’s modern identity has been constructed around the bombing is also problematic as it obscures the history of marginalised demographics within the city, as well as Hiroshima’s pre-war identity. In Hiroshima’s and Japan’s memory of the atomic bombing, Hiroshima is represented as a sacrifice to bring about peace, and to ensure the disastrous impacts of nuclear war are not repeated in the future (Zwigenberg, 2016, p.622). While at first glance these future goals are amicable, this also denies Hiroshima’s history during and before the war, and the way the city contributed to Japan’s colonial and military history (Zwigenberg, 2016, p.622).

This is particularly clear in relation to the Korean hibakushas whose identities and histories are largely forgotten in this way of remembering, despite comprising over 10% of the bomb’s survivors (Clausen, 2015). While Japanese narratives of 6 August 1945 often start with a blinding explosion and subsequent mushroom cloud, Korean survivor narratives often start with Japan’s brutal colonial rule and occupation of Korea (Vox Populi, 2023). Though thousands of innocent Japanese died in the atomic bombings, emphasising purely the destruction of the bomb to promote peace actively denies Japan’s history as a perpetrator in World War II (Clausen, 2015). This is particularly highlighted by the government’s initial refusal to commemorate Korean victims of the bombings – after over 30 years of campaigning, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park only incorporated a memorial for Korean victims in 1998 (Vox Populi, 2023). On the one hand this refusal to commemorate Korean victims preserves an ‘inclusive’ and collective Japanese narrative of and local identity with the bombing, but simultaneously proves exclusionary and problematic to non-Japanese identities and narratives.

Though Hiroshima has recently acknowledged the presence of non-Japanese victims in the atomic bombings more, the city’s identity based on victimhood in World War II proves problematic in obscuring Hiroshima’s and Japan’s role in the war. While nothing is black and white and it is important to commemorate civilian victims of the bomb, this must not occur at the expense of Japan’s imperial and colonial history. Though the city has successfully increased social equality in its post-war urban reconstruction, to form true social cohesion and justice its historical-based identity needs to be revisited and revised to acknowledge non-Japanese identities. If this is not changed, Hiroshima’s post-war identity, so closely associated with the bombing, will remain deeply exclusionary and catered solely to Japanese nationals and victims of World War II.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Hiroshima acts as an important symbol against war, and for peace, social justice, and urban regeneration. With its post-war ideals of promoting sustainable, pacifist, and humanitarian urban-planning, the city acts as an exemplary space on how to reconstruct after disasters, and how to ensure greater social equality and prosperity. Nonetheless, Hiroshima’s new identity, as based on the atomic bombing and subsequent reconstruction obscures marginalised histories of the city and Japan ultimately creating a deeply exclusionary urban identity. Addressing and learning from Hiroshima’s success and failures in the post-war era therefore provide important wider insights into Japan’s and East Asia’s memories of the war, and the long-lasting impacts the conflict has on societies to this day.

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