June 18, 2013

Public sports facilities in Tokyo have been in decline due to worn out equipment. Since 2000, 55 facilities have vanished. Out of Tokyo’s public gymnasiums, 26% are more than 33 years old. Tokyo ranks the 46th out of all 47 prefectures in the number of public athletic centers per capita. In terms of the number of public gymnastic halls, Tokyo is at the bottom.

In the 1970s, the Tokyo metropolitan government under the progressive governor at that time constructed many public sports facilities as a sports promotion measure.

Though renovation work of these aging facilities has been long needed, the Tokyo metropolitan government has left them in states of disrepair by arguing that not Tokyo but ward, city, town, and village municipalities are responsible for their upkeep. Tokyo turned its back on the public call for more sports installations by insisting that Tokyoites have enough sporting facilities despite being in the bottom rank.

These years, however, Tokyo had to put in place certain measures to improve sports-related places in order to respond to the need for quake-resistant buildings in the wake of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and to this year’s National Athletics Meet to be held in Tokyo in September.

The Tokyo metropolitan government will at last proceed with a plan to rebuild the 49-year-old indoor ball sports field at Metropolitan Komazawa Olympic Park as long called for by the JCP.

In the past five years, Tokyo municipalities improved or renovated about 90 public athletic facilities with subsidies the Tokyo metropolitan government provided as part of preparation for its September National Athletics Meet.

“If the Tokyo metropolitan government provides the political initiative, many more facilities can be repaired and renovated,” said Igano Akira of a Japanese Communist Party supporters’ association of sports enthusiasts.