2. Tokyo Narita Airport Farm

This may be our favorite discovery. At Tokyo Narita International Airport, a farm refused to give in to the pressures of eminent domain and the runway was simply built around it. If you look closely, a roadway goes under the runway, with a portion exposed to the open air as it goes around the farmer’s house. Via Google Street View, you can even see what it looks like from this road and get a glimpse of the home and driveway.

Image via Bing Maps

Google Street View showing driveway and entrance to the farmhouse

Zoomed out view of the farmhouse amidst the airport (along the Shibayama Railway line)

As of 2013, the 91-year-old owner of the home was still fighting the government, still farming within his land, and still living inside the house. Koji Kitahara had survived World War II and moved to this area to farm, and the battle over the taking of farmland for Narita airport has been going on since 1966. Older photos show just how much of the airport used to be farmland–and how slow the effort has been to grow the airport over the last six decades due to the development battles. Check out some great photographs of Kitahara inside his house and on his fields in this article from Japan Subculture.