Ueno Sakuragi Atari was a tiny plot on an awkward back street in Tokyo with three old houses. It was supposed to become a parking lot. Instead it was renovated and turned into shops, performance spaces, bars, bakery, etc. employing a dozen people and attracting thousands weekly. 
Imagine taking a prospective parking lot and turning it into something so beautiful that TV and movie companies rent it as a shooting location, and models and photographers flock there for photo sessions? Without a vision none of this would have happened.
In today's world of head splitting ugliness and greed, building and protecting an oasis or springhead of beauty is practically a subversive, contra-revolutionary act of the highest order.
