Do you think coastal towns and villages destroyed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami should be rebuilt in the same places?

Bit cities and towns? I guess so. Small villages? They were already ghost towns with young people gone. Who will rebuild them? Who will live there?

hard to say

How about floating cities? I saw a design on Yahoo a few short weeks ago. New jobs, new mode of living...

Just build along the coast,at a distance which is safe. Can build really good high rise,which take a tsunami hit.

People also could make tunnels under new towns near coast,to drive out water,if there is tsunami hit.

Many ways to fight tsunamis,at the coast. Houses could be high ,and above any tsunami at sea coast.

They could be equiped with rescue air rubber boats and life jackets .

Floating towns can easily absorb tsunami impact.

It's whole new field of R &D.

Just like there is anti-quake building,there can be also anti-tsunami houses/housing,for North East Japan.

Should they? No. Will they? Yes. Why? Hard to say.

When Napoleon was involved with the restructuring of Paris he built streets wide and straight so he could quickly apply his troops to squash riots over bad apples or whatever the French are irate about. My point is with similar streets people would stand a better chance. I also like the idea of having a number of tall solid buildings to provide a quick haven.

In connection with the rebuilding of homes or even schools. I like the idea of timber framed homes with each major joint made by using a wooden peg rather than nails as it tends to allow a little movement. There are pros and cons to timber framing.

This is an excellent opportunity to reclaim the land for food production. The owners of the land and buildings must have government assistance, so why not take this unfortunate event and prepare for the future by having the government provide land and building expenses? It is far better than some of the wasteful projects Japan has been involved in in foreign countries. Reduce foreign aid to certain countries that everyone knows and spend it on Japan.

I see no reason as to why they shouldn't rebuild. It's not like 100 foot high tsunamis are every day occurrences. It was a freak event.

Found something interesting.

Not too long ago many(maybe most) schools were found lacking in the ability to survive a major quake.

Steps were taken to reinforce ones that were found lacking, yet after the big quake/tsunami they seemed to have survived granted while flooded with mud, etc.

I agree the area will rebuild itself and will be better for it.

If this is a once in a thousand year event, then yes.

rajakumar, like what you said. They should indeed build a whole tunnelsystem, like they did in Tokyo for flooding rivers due to heavy rainfall. Either way if you are born in a place its not so easy to leave that place. This is indeed a 1 in a hundred year occurrence. But why take the risk

Well I think it's up to the people who lost their houses. Leaving a town/city isn't easy if you've been there since your childhood. But still it's up to the people themselves. I think the government has to rebuild the place. It's more expensive to build a whole new town/city than rebuild one. If the foundations are still good why build new ones? And the fact that the evacuation system actually really worked and saved many lifes is also a reason to rebuild the the coastline. The main thing is that families still have eachother. The damage exists out of material stuff. Maybe a little emotional damage, but together you can be strong. And if I could choose between a big noisy city or a nice house at the beach. I would definitely choose the beachhouse!!!:D Having in mind to be carefull but relying on the evacuation systems. However that is my opinion...

I can't believe 24% said yes.

Given the large number of unoccupied homes in Japan (7,027,900 in 2003), the projected decline in the Japanese population, and the danger of living in the area, rebuilding in the same location seems unwise.

The towns and villages may be in ruins at the moment but they are still home to the people that survived. They will rebuild because it is their home and for most of them it is also where they earn their living. Losing family, friends and homes if anything just makes these places that much more important to the people who survived.

I am not sure if they will be built in the same locations, but I just hope whatever they build will be built from reinforced concrete! No more wooden crap please!

I think some of the larger areas shud be re-built, smaller ones shud seriously re-consider. And some real planning needs to be done for sure, the hodge podge mix & match no zoning needs to be abandoned for sure imo!

Ports where fishing is done, fix'em I say, make roads wide, make places where houses were non-residential, parks, sports fields, agriculture as appropriate, keep clear wide roads sidewalks to allow easier any future evacuations.

As others have sad the population is shrinking & set to shrink faster with time. And can Japan actually afford to re-build all this, no imo.

Its awful that some will need to live in new environs but its the sensible thing to do in some of these places.

Now having said that I wud not bet on much having these places being looked at & re-done taking into account the reality of the situation.

Who would want to rebuild there? To each his own but good luck on finding insurance.

Hard to say, and obviously up to the people who lived/worked there. I mean, it's easy for me to say 'no', but where would they go that is guaranteed safe from a safe event? (I realize there are more places a tsunami might not hit, but there's no where safe from a mjor quake). There are also land issues here in general. In any case, I agree with posters who say if it's rebuilt on the same spot they've got to take further steps to prepare for a similar or worse event (especially nuclear plants!).