昔から上野の子供たちは、世界中から人が集う商店街を遊び場にし、国内最高水準の文化施設に囲まれて育ってきた。学校では異なる文化を背景に持つクラスメイトたちと出会い、上野が持つ多様な価値観の中で共に伸び伸びと学んできた。そして地域の大人たちが各々の出自に関係なく上野という場を共有し、時に強く、時に緩やかに繋がりながら暮らすことを間近で見てきた。気取らず自然体であることが上野っ子の気風であり、それは世代を超えて上野の人々によって引き継がれている。「多様性こそ上野のアドバンテージ」と上野商店街の子供たちが通う小学校の校長は言う。異なる文化や価値観を持つ人々と共に生きていく力がますます必要となるこれからの世界で、今の時代の小さな「上野っ子」たちはどんな上野の未来を作っていくのだろうか。

Since the old times children in Ueno have played in the shopping district where people have come from all over the world, and they have grown up surrounded by the highest-level cultural institutions of Japan. They have met classmates with different cultural backgrounds at school, and they have learned all together in a free and relaxed mood in diverse values of Ueno. Those children have closely seen local adults living together in Ueno by bonding with each other tightly and loosely without caring their origins. “Free and easy” is the character of Ueno natives, and that has been inherited by the people in Ueno generation after generation. The schoolmaster of the elementary school in the Ueno shopping district says, “Diversity is the very advantage of Ueno.” In this world where the ability to live together with people of different cultures or values is highly needed, what future of Ueno will the present-day little Ueno natives be building?