Theodore Bestor :: You wouldnt think that a city like Tokyo would need volunteer fire departments. After all, its a big modern city, an industrial society. But in fact volunteer fire departments are everywhere; there are hundreds of them throughout Tokyo, and they play an important role in sort of defining the social institutions of particular neighborhoods.
But there are also practical reasons why volunteer fire departments are necessary. If you look at a map of Tokyo, for example, youll see that throughout the city, the street plan is this mass of twisting, turning, little alleyways. Theres no straight line between here and there. And so in many neighborhoods volunteer departments are needed if only to be able to guide the professional firefighters to the scene of a fire, tell them which alley to go down, which street they need to turn at, because unless youre a native of the neighborhood you may not be able to find your way. |