I just went to Tsukiji on the opening day of this new year. As the article states, this is the last year of the 70+ year history of the Tsukiji market.<p>If you can read it, this document &lt;<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shijou.metro.tokyo.jp&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;book&#x2F;book_all.pdf&gt;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shijou.metro.tokyo.jp&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;book&#x2F;book_all.pdf&gt;</a> by the city government, who owns the market, covers the context, motivations, and efforts that had gone into the migration of the fish market from Tsukiji to Toyosu.<p>I was originally skeptical why it couldn&#x27;t be re-developed in its current site. After all, many more ambitious redevelopment projects have been successfully done in Tokyo. For example, Shibuya station, which is used by more than two million people every day, has been going through a major redevelopment. The same with freeways in Boston aka &quot;Big Dig.&quot; Granted, these projects take long time and is a major annoyance, nonetheless it proves that massive redevelopment projects are possible.<p>The document I mentioned earlier gives a nice short overview of why it is not so for Tsukiji. The main arguments are:<p>* Redevelopment needs a temporary on-site space but Tsukiji is so overcrowded at this point that this is not possible<p>* Unlike users of train stations, users of Tsukiji (food, fish, trucks, and cars) aren&#x27;t very compatible with multi story buildings, yet the site is too small to have a flat single story building, which is why they feel the need to move in the first place.<p>* The government wants to build a closed walled building for the new market. In contrast, today the market has just the roof and no walls, and it&#x27;s indeed not very clean (at least for the Japanese standard.)<p>In reference to the soil contamination problem mentioned in the economist article, the government apparently replaced the top 15 feet worth of soil for 40ha, which had cost whopping half a billion dollars (!)<p>I&#x27;d be curious to read a similar comprehensive argument from those who oppose the migration.