Lessons to Global Urbanization from Modern Japan's Problematic
Experiences: Message to the World from the Japan Association
for Urban Sociology
Japan Association for Urban Sociology

The Japan Association for Urban Sociology was launched on May 17, 1982. Since then it has
deepened sociological studies on urban areas in a theoretical, empirical, and applicative mannerbased on trends across sociology as a whole, such as globalization and urbanization. This message
will introduce readers to the history of urban sociology in Japan and the major issues with which it
is interested, while also discussing post-3.11 challenges.
1. The Origins of Urban Sociology in Japan
Just like with the case in other countries, it is not all that easy to discuss the origins of urbansociology in Japan with precision. If one were to trace back the genealogy of urban sociologicalstudies that have persisted down to the present, then at the very least these would exhibit thefollowing three trends.
First there are the studies on poverty that have been carried out since the end of the 19th
century with a focus on cities like Tokyo, which have experienced the social change of turning fromfeudal cities into modern cities. Groundbreaking work in social investigations—such as
MATSUBARA Iwagoro’s The Darkest Side of Tokyo (1893) or YOKOYAMA Gennosuke’s Lower
Class Society in Japan (1899), for example—offered impressive portraits of the existence of theunderclass in massive cities. Such works actually derived inspiration from Charles BOOTH’s
studies on London and the works of others.
Second is that during the first half of the 20th century, when capitalist economies started toundergo significant development, studies on themes such as housing, sanitation, poverty, social
class, and leisure were carried out in the metropolises that had begun to spring up. These were
instituted by local governments that had a pressing need to enact social policies. There was anenormous number of such investigative reports, which serve as valuable records on Japan’s first
metropolis. One of the leaders in this was ISOMURA Eiichi, who was involved in urban policy atTokyo City Hall. After World War II he moved to a university and became one of Japan’s
representative urban sociological researchers (Isomura 1989).
The third trend is that pioneers in urban sociological studies began to appear on the scene at
the universities that gradually continued to be established. OKUI Fukutaro, who lectured on
economics, was influenced by the thinking of John RUSKIN and the notion of the garden citywhile he was studying abroad in the United Kingdom. He vigorously championed studies inTokyo’s outer-lying cities starting in the 1930s (Okui 1940). SUZUKI Eitaro, who started researchbased on agricultural sociology, attempted to depict the characteristics of Japan’s cities—whichwere comprised of unique spheres while at the same time being embedded within a hierarchical229

structure between the center and periphery—through the use of the concept of nodal institutions(Suzuki 1957).
When World War II came to a close in 1945 Japan’s cities, which had been dealt major blows
from air-raids and evacuations, made a fresh start from out of what were quite literally ruins.
Having started to seek out new political and economic structures under the American occupation,
Japanese cities were thrown into a state of confusion as their populations surged upwards once
again. As a reflection of the circumstances of the times, in the 1950s research on Japan’s cities
produced outstanding empirical studies in fields such as poverty and crime (refer to “3. Urban
Poverty and Social Exclusion”). However, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the country moved awayfrom postwar reconstruction and towards rapid economic growth, Japanese urban sociology entereda new stage of institutionalization as urbanization proceeded at full tilt.
(MACHIMURA Takashi, Hitotsubashi University)
2. Rapid Economic Growth and Metropolitan Society—Urban Sociology Becomes
Institutionalized
According to population statistics by the United Nations, in 1950 the percentage of the
population living in “urban areas” came to 53.4% of Japan’s total population. Twenty years later in1970 this figure had shot up to 71.9% (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
Population Division, 2012). In this period, which overlapped precisely with the country’s period of
rapid economic growth, large-scale population migrations from rural regions to major metropolitan
areas proceeded apace in Japan. A great many people flowed into the three major metropolitan
areas of Tokyo, Osaka, or Nagoya in order to find work or to advance onto universities or otherinstitutes of higher learning.
According to the same statistics, the percentage of the population living in urban areas in the
United States showed a moderate increase from 64.2% to 73.2% from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Conversely, in the United Kingdom, where urbanization was already more advanced, a slightdecrease from 79.0% to 77.1% was recorded for this same proportion. On the other hand, a look at
Japan’s neighboring countries in East Asia reveals that the percentage of the population in
metropolitan areas in 1970 was only 40.7% in South Korea and 17.4% in China. It has beenrecognized that the West was oftentimes ahead of Japan when it came to urbanization. Therefore,
urban studies in Japan have been developed in a manner whereby they refer to concepts andtheories proposed in the West while simultaneously verifying whether these are applicable inJapan’s case.
Throughout the progression of its rapid urbanization a whole host of new social problems
occurred frequently in urban society. However, it was difficult to resolve these with just thetraditional institutions and conventional organizations found in the urban and rural areas in whichsocial structures had undergone upheaval. What sorts of new prescriptions should be suggested?
Urban sociological studies have always been required to face up to such practical challenges.
However, in order to offer prescriptions it is necessary to define what the problems are. Moreover,their causes must also be explained by tracing them back to their underlying structures. From the230

1960s to the 1980s urban sociological research in Japan diverged into several different schools ofthought regarding their understanding of urban social structures and their changes.
First off, there was the standpoint that saw the greatest problems facing urban societies as
being due to the tension and opposition produced by the intermixed status of new and old residents
who have differing rationales for integration, as well as the lack of a new rationale for social
integration. This approach of emphasizing integration has been understood in Japan as being linked
with the Chicago school of urban sociology. The young people who flowed into major metropolitan
areas searched for living quarters in the vicinity around the city centers which had excellent
transportation facilities for commuting to work and school, after which they formed families andrelocated to suburban areas. For this reason, suburban communities in which new and old residents
are intermixed have served as a major platform for empirical studies in urban sociology in search of
new integration. Through this process the concept of “community” as a new rationale for
integration has been taken up in a political sense, and urban sociologists themselves continue to be
involved in its establishment (refer to “4. Community Theory and Network Analysis”).
Second, there has been the position that has viewed the major causes of the problems
confronting urban societies as being due to (capitalistic) economic structures and the contradictions
produced by state policies that are closely connected with these. In Japan, which prior to the war
was strongly influenced by Marxism, political economic approaches had a strong influence even instudies of urban and rural areas. The enormous impact that large-scale industrial development hadon regional societies represented a major theme in many of the studies on urban and rural areas.
Moreover, the social movements in which residents organized in opposition to the environmental
destruction and pollution caused by development were also taken up as a major focus of urban
studies in the 1970s and 1980s as the new main constituents in oppositional behavior (Matsubara
and Nitagai eds. 1976).
The wave of “new urban sociology” that appeared at the end of the 1960s from out of the Westarrived in Japan in no time at all. The subjects dealt with by the new urban sociology were theurban transformations that took place during periods of economic growth and the social
contradictions that these engendered. As part of this movement, theories from France by the likes ofHenri LEFEBVRE and Manuel CASTELLS had a strong affinity with Japanese society. Postwar
France was similar to Japan in that it made progress with urbanization at a rapid pace on account of
its proactive urban development policies. Lefebvre’s Le droit à la ville (1967) was quickly
translated into Japanese by 1969.
Third, numerous studies to empirically confirm how urban and rural political structures should
be arranged were taken up as a research field that is related to both of the two schools of thoughtseen above. The fact of the matter is that, against this backdrop, questions surrounding the extent towhich the feudal system and the nationalism under the Emperor system from before the war had an
impact on newly-democratic postwar Japanese society were widely shared among the social
sciences in postwar Japan. In the case of urban sociology, one of the focal points was on thepolitical functions of the ruling local resident organizations—or neighborhood associations.
Progress was made on empirical studies in this area that incorporated techniques from the American231style of research on community power structures. What is more, studies to verify the urban impacts
produced by state intervention in society through its policies were carried out on the basis of thecapitalist state theory of the 1970s. There were a wide variety of subjects that were verified throughthese. But on the whole it was reaffirmed that there was some degree of difference between the
traditional ruling structures that were based on land ownership and the capitalistic power structuresthat have existed since the modern age, and that as things currently stood these were intermixed
within actual urban and rural areas.
The establishment of the Japan Association for Urban Sociology in 1982 was premised against
this wide array of studies. In the 1980s Japan was enjoying its bubble economy. Japanese cities
were awash in new waves of global capital, immigrants, and so on (refer to “5. Challenges for
Urban Ethnicity Studies”). In the globally urbanizing Tokyo factories, warehouse districts, and oldworker’s districts were destroyed on account of redevelopment, and on their old sites offices,condominiums, and other such buildings were erected (Machimura 1992). At the beginning of the
1990s the economic bubble burst, and ever since Japan has been suffering from prolonged
economic stagnation. The trends of industrialization and urbanization that started in the rapid
growth period had come to an end. In the 1990s, while globalization gathered steam worldwide,
Japan on the other hand was compelled to clean up from the message following its bubble economy.
Japanese cities headed into the 21st century amidst the stagnation and isolation that was known as
the “lost decade” (refer to “6. 21st Century Urban Sociology in Japan in Light of 3.11”).
(MACHIMURA Takashi, Hitotsubashi University)
3. Urban Poverty and Social Exclusion
Now that it has entered the 21st century, Japan finds itself in similar circumstances with manyother countries in that the progression of poverty and social exclusion poses a significant social
problem. This was prompted by the emergence of homeless people in major cities that has risen toprominence since the 1990s as a result of de-industrialization and globalization.
Of course, that is not to imply that poverty and social exclusion did not exist in cities prior tothat. As was mentioned in Section 1, one of the starting points from which urban sociology in Japanemerged was from factual investigations into the impoverished. What is more, the rapid
industrialization that began at the outset of the 20th century gave rise to pockets of poverty andexclusion within cities, and state and local governments instituted numerous studies on these out of
their need to undertake policy responses to them. Prior to the war, the Chicago school of urbansociology was adopted in Japan by the administrative personnel in cities who were confronted withvarious different urban problems, such as poverty. This also provided the theoretical andmethodological basis for thinking about social problems in cities in the postwar period as well.
Conversely, urban studies rooted in Marxism regarded urban problems as sharp indications of thestructural contradictions of capitalistic industrialization. Such studies attempted to empiricallydemonstrate the polarization of social classes and impoverishment found within cities that were
produced through the expansion of regional inequalities.
However, ever since its period of rapid economic growth Japan has recognized poverty as232being a problem that is resolved or alleviated together with the achievement of affluence. From
1955 to 1995 its per capita GNP has grown roughly 40-fold on a nominal basis and roughly ten-foldon a real basis. Moreover, the people’s “middle-class consciousness” has also expanded.
But in actuality poverty and exclusion have not exactly gone away. Japanese urban sociology
has amassed a body of studies focusing on people who work at yoseba (skid row districts), as wellas in the labor market for the lower classes. These have continued to pose questions about not only
the explanations for the economic structures that give rise to poor people, but also the power
structures and ideological structures of civil society that try to sweep poverty and exclusion under
the rug. AOKI Hideo positions Japan's urban underclass within international structures of
exploitation. He also portrays the ideological and power structures that exclude the urban
underclass based upon his assiduous studies (Aoki 2000).
NISHIZAWA Akihiko refers to the “limited positions and spaces where people who have been
marginalized from groups, cut off from regional society, and alienated from their family can live inisolation” as “domains of the poor” (Nishizawa 2010). Since the 1990s there has been a profusionof poor people in urban spaces. While various types of social support have begun to be provided tosuch people, according to Nishizawa authoritative interventions in these domains of the poor andthe ideologies justifying these have essentially remained unchanged from the time when modern
society came into being until the present. He typifies these into three patterns: treatment,
concealment, and erasure. Treatment refers to reincorporating people into organizations and fixed
domains through training, while concealment refers to socially isolating people of an unpatriotic
status who are not worthy of treatment and rendering them invisible. Erasure is employed bysociety through death by abandonment or “attacks.”
However, social support is necessary. The problem will most likely be one of identifying theideologies underpinning this and designing institutions that do not exclude. In recent years support
from the aid sector, such as NPOs, has been growing more prolific. How can support that does not
exclude people and social inclusion be made possible? While cities are venues of exclusion, at thesame time they are also venues where the social rise up in opposition to exclusion through a
mixture of a diverse array of constituents, including interested parties, supporters, citizens, and thegovernment. The thinking is that contemporary urban sociology must indicate the process by which
this takes shape.
(INAZUKI Tadashi, The University of Kitakyushu)
4. Community Theory and Network Analysis
4.1 Community Theory
Community theories in urban sociology in Japan have undergone their own uniquedevelopment in the postwar period by emphasizing locality (the finiteness of regional spaces) andcommunality (the interactions between local residents). Japan’s major cities went through a periodof rapid growth in the 1960s, causing a rapid loss in communality within regional societies andinstigating said societies in major cities to undergo major transformations. NAKAMURA Hachiro
studied the neighborhood associations and community circles on the suburb of Tokyo in this period.
233

He discovered that their conventional organizational configuration in which prestigious local
citizens were appointed as officials was crumbling and that new types of neighborhood associations
were being established one after another. With this new type of neighborhood association many
people undertook roles in said associations in order to protect residents’ rights (Nakamura 1973).
MATSUBARA Haruo and KURASAWA Susumu conducted attitude surveys on residents inhousing complexes on the suburb of Tokyo during this same period. They discovered that theconsciousness of city dwellers, which lay at the opposite extreme from traditional community
consciousness, was in fact higher among people residing in housing complexes who were newresidents (Matsubara and Kurasawa 1969; Matsubara 1978).
Based on such discoveries by urban sociologists, Japanese community theory aimed toestablish new regional communities that were an integral part of the formation of civic
communities. As such, it promoted studies related to resident awareness that could contribute to theformation of communities, or in other words to community consciousness. Two of the outcomesfrom this will be introduced here.
The first is OKUDA Michihiro’s community model, while the second is SUZUKI Hiroshi’s
community morals. Okuda created four patterns of consciousness by combining the two axes ofsubjectification and universalization based on the trends of the traditional community
consciousness theory that was developed to simultaneously encapsulate regional attachment and anawareness of universal values. These four patterns are the regional community model, thetraditional anomie model, the individualist model, and the community model. These models
hypothesized development processes, with the regional community model corresponding totraditional regional societies, the traditional anomie and individualist models appearing over thecourse of its breakdown and disintegration, and the community model serving as a new
consciousness that appears when these integrate (Okuda 1983).
Conversely, Suzuki Hiroshi perceived the transformations to social structures that
accompanied urbanization as being tied in with changes in the lives of individuals. For this reason,
he proposed placing emphasis on changes in residents’ consciousness at the local community level
and analytically differentiating community consciousness into moral dimensions and normative
dimensions. Norms are people’s inclinations or objectives to uphold values, and morals are theirambition or morale towards upholding norms. Whereas norms are set as qualitative variables—soto speak—that indicate a number of directions, morals are set as quantitative variables that express
standards. Suzuki selected four districts with different residential structures according to an axis
running from “indigenous” to “fluid” and performed a comparative study concerning community
morals and norms (Suzuki ed. 1978).
In response to these two studies, Kurasawa Susumu advocated for an ideal concept forcommunity; namely, stipulating “desirable local community systems” (Kurasawa 1998). On thebasis of his own urban lifestyle theory, Kurasawa criticized residents’ strong dependence on
systems that manage problems of shared and collective living based upon special expertise(expertise-based management systems). He also called for the reform of these expertise-based
management systems in local communities, and urges communities to undertake the work of234

erecting management systems that are optimal for each local community.
Community theory is currently grappling with new research challenges, such as resident
participation in governmental decision-making processes, reforming the different management
systems of each spatial region, cooperation between regional organizations, and social capital.

4.2 Network Analyses
Elizabeth BOTT’s research related to the roles of couples and networks has had a direct major
impact on the sociology of the family. But over the long run many of Japan’s urban sociologists
have continued to display a closer affinity for discussions concerning Louis WIRTH’s theory on thedegeneration of primary relationships over and above that for Bott’s work. Yet even though theterm network was not used over the course of such movements, pioneering studies were carried out
on social networks in a substantial sense, which had some measure of influence on them (Sasamori
1955; Suzuki ed. 1978; Morioka 1979). In the 1980s the personal network research of Claude S.
FISCHER, Barry WELLMAN and others in North America began to be introduced to Japan, andthe number of researchers who were interested in the changes in personal networks that
accompanied urbanization suddenly shot up. The research by Fischer and Wellman were based on
the results of the research on networks from Wirth onwards, which they organized in order todevelop their own research so as to demonstrate new theoretical implications. It is believed that it
was for this reason that such work was easily accepted by Japan’s urban sociologists.
Fischer’s research evoked empirical studies on the themes of urbanism and friendshipnetworks in Japan. Wellman’s research played a significant role in the sense that it no doubt
liberated researchers from the challenge of uncovering accumulations of intimate networks withincommunities, which is hard to do in reality, via liberated community theory. What is more,comparative studies between cities related to urbanism and friendship networks in Japanese cities
have provided knowledge not only on urbanism. They have also offered knowledge on the impact
this has on the formation of friendship networks and the binding force of networks, such as
research subjects’ native regions and previous places of residence, accessibility within cities, andthe number of years research subjects have been residing where they live (refer to Matsumoto 1995,
2005; Otani 1995; Nozawa 2009; Morioka ed. 2000, etc.). Moving forward, there will be a need todeepen discussions concerning the collection of data related to the special characteristics of
network structures and the methods for measuring urbanism.
(MORIOKA Kiyoshi, The Open University of Japan)
5. Challenges for Urban Ethnicity Studies
Ethnicity studies in Japan have a history that only stretches back a mere 25 years. Back when
the Japan Association for Urban Sociology was established in 1982, ethnicity studies were almost
completely nonexistent within Japan. The following four studies can be mentioned as examples oftrailblazing studies. KAJITA Takamichi studied immigration issues in the West, and was quick topoint out that this perspective enabled him to start to see signs of issues with foreigners in Japan as235

well (Kajita 1988). In the same year, WATADO Ichiro statistically showcased the extent to which
foreigners had increased in Tokyo in more specific terms (Watado 1988). Thereafter, FURUKI
Toshiaki could be said to have been prescient when it came to studies on attitudes towards
foreigners (Furuki ed. 1990). The reason why is because studies on ethnic consciousness in Japan
did not finally get up to speed until after the start of the 2000s. Moreover, in connection with his
research on issues with foreign workers in Europe, MORI Hiromasa realized that in fact a similar
issue had existed in Japan from before. This was the issue with the Korean people residing in Japan(Mori 1986). Mori’s research could be described as a groundbreaking study that situated this issue
within a whole new context.
With these pioneering figures, over this past quarter century we have truly seen a large numberof sociological studies performed, over which themes have gradually crystallized. These themes
include “urban communities and foreign residents”, “issues with foreign workers”, “the attitudes ofJapanese people towards foreigners”, “policies for resident foreigners”, “ethnic businesses”, “ethnic
culture”, and more. The first three of these are themes that urban sociologists have addressed
relatively enthusiastically.
With respect to urban communities and foreign residents, Okuda Michihiro’s group set towork on a survey in Ikebukuro, Tokyo in April 1988 (Okuda and Tajima ed. 1991). After this they
vigorously continued to carry out surveys with a Shinjuku survey in 1991 and a second Ikebukuro
survey in 1994, with which they achieved results. Their research was interested in the extent towhich foreigners from Asia contributed to reviving the resident population and to countermeasures
to the aging of society, which are administrative challenges in the inner area of Tokyo. At roughly
the same time period, TANI Tomio’s group set to work studying ethnic relations between Koreans
residing in Japan and Japanese people within the Ikuno Ward of Osaka, with this researchcontinuing still to this day (Tani ed. 2002). Furthermore, HIROTA Yasuo empirically revealed how
the ethnic networks created by South Americans of Japanese ancestry and Japanese people in
Tsurumi Ward, Yokohama City serve as “circuits” for overcoming a variety of different problems
by circumventing the institutional barriers faced by non-Japanese people of Japanese ancestry(Hirota 2003). The unique regional characteristic whereby numerous people originally hailing from
Okinawa were to be found both among the Japanese people and among the non-Japanese ofJapanese descent enabled the formation of these circuits.
These sorts of urban sociological studies have attracted pointed criticism from a sociology oflabor standpoint. For example, OKUBO Takeshi has pointed out that Hirota’s study was lacking inan analytical perspective of looking at foreign labor problems (Okubo 2005). While the question
was presented from the perspective of “Are foreigners residents or workers?” to the author’s way of
thinking this opposition must be sublated through the construction of a theory of urban typologythat is concerned with ethnic groups. As research on this accumulates, it will become clearer andclearer that there are urban areas where it is appropriate to treat foreigners as residents and urban
areas where it is appropriate to treat them as workers. As such, a theory of urban typology
constitutes a future challenge for ethnicity studies in Japan.
A considerable body of research has been amassed on the attitudes of Japanese people towards
236foreigners, from which the following hypotheses were deduced when this was put in order by
MATSUMOTO Yasushi. These include hypotheses related to social organization, networks, theeffects from one’s place of residence, the effects of urbanism, frequency of contact, particular typesof concentrated dwellings of Japanese people, particular types of concentrated dwellings offoreigners, and more (Matsumoto 2006). Whereas the primary factors behind most of these havebeen sought in individual attributes and behavior, in recent years the appearance of a hypothesisthat divides the labor market into separate parts has garnered attention. This hypothesis analyzes
attitudes towards foreigners from a macro perspective that looks at the labor market and thepositioning of foreign workers within it (Nagayoshi 2012). Future challenges related to ethnic
attitudes include dealing with the process by which images of foreigners are formed, forming
hypotheses incorporating a time axis of carryover effects and attitude-based interpretations, as well
as moving from attitude surveys to fieldwork and even studies on foreigner attitudes of Japanesepeople beyond this.
It is estimated that Japan’s population will decrease by 41 million people over the next 50
years. In the future, the issue of immigration for the sake of securing its workforce will likely posean unavoidable challenge to Japan. In this sense, there is no shortage of themes that urban ethnic
studies must grapple with in order to seek out modalities for living in harmony with foreigners.
Moreover, challenges at the national level in the form of immigration policies will only increase inimportance more and more in the future.
(TANI Tomio, Konan University)
6. 21st Century Urban Sociology in Japan in Light of 3.11
6.1 Problems for Urban Sociology
At a session commemorating the 30-year anniversary of the Japan Association for Urban
Sociology at the association’s 30th meeting (in 2012), MACHIMURA Takashi perceived of theassociation’s 30 years as “searching in the midst of an ‘identity crisis.’” He arranged the challenges
that Japanese urban sociology has proposed and worked to address thus far, based upon which hesubmitted the following three challenges as current and future challenges.
The first challenge will be multilayered considerations of opportunities for “bundling” people
who have been exposed to a process of “merciless individualization” into cities as structures. The
network theory by MORIOKA Kiyoshi that was reported on at the session commemorating theassociation’s 30-year anniversary and TANI Tomio’s ethnicity theory are sets of issues that extend
into this. The second challenge will be to grasp urban systems and their connection with thestructures of the social worlds of the people that live in them. Urban systems “not only exist as thematerial bases for peoples’ lives, but also function as the physical foundations constituting
communality when people make approaches to said urban systems” (Tamano 1996: 85). The
question of how the relationship with these two structures is to be perceived is being raised throughthe second challenge. The third challenge will be to ask what sorts of roles cities play both as theoriginators of influence and conversely as entities that are themselves influenced in the midst of
declining populations and within global or regional urban arrangements and urban networks. This237

question is one that deserves consideration.
6.2 Exposing the Disparities between the Central and Local Governments
This third challenge was pointed out by towns and villages—and while this question is being
posed in connection with the second challenge—it now constitutes an urgent subject for urbansociology in Japan. The Great East Japan Earthquake and the accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi
Nuclear Power Plant that occurred on March 11, 2011 clearly exposed the rupture and disparities
between the central and local governments for everyone to see, and made a great many people
cognizant of the facts of the matter.
The national land development that began in the latter half of the Showa Era (1926-89) was
actually carried out to enable the concentrated allocation of production functions in the Pacific belt
region. However, this actual state of affairs was concealed, and from the latter half of the Showa
Era a masquerade was perpetuated that this represented a “spatial Keynesianism,” which is to saythat it held fast to a policy of investing in and developing all domestic spaces equally. Yet since thestart of the 2000s the government undertook a plain and unambiguous shift towards cities, and thus
the sense of fairness that had provided the foundation for cooperative relations within the country
was lost as peripheral regions were neglected. As a result of this, disparities arose between thecentral and regional governments in terms of their economic might and self-governing capabilities(Nakazawa 2012).
In this manner, 3.11 has been the catalyst for stripping away the mask of this “spatial
Keynesianism” from these “regional urban arrangements and urban networks” that had been built
up from the latter half of the Showa Era through the Heisei Era (1989-). As such, many people
began to realize that this was something that had been constructed because of the economic
prosperity of the central government. Questions have started to be raised over how to change thisrelationship between the central and local governments, and over what sorts of roles cities shouldplay. The anti-nuclear demonstrations that were held every Friday in front of the prime minister’s
office could be called an expression of this realization. Yet this has yet to lead to a reformation of
the relationship between the central and local governments, as has been pointed out in the following
quotation: “In fact their relationship has remained unchanged for one and a half years; and on thecontrary it appears as if this inclination continues to grow stronger (Yamashita 2012: 68).”
6. 3 Questions Posed to Japanese Urban Sociologists
While this relationship has not reached the point of undergoing a reformation, grass-roots
movements to rewire the connection between the central and local governments have steadily
persisted and are showing signs of expanding. Kirikiri in Otsuchi Town, Kamihei District, Iwate
Prefecture suffered catastrophic damage from the Great East Japan Earthquake. When thetransporting of a portable shrine, the deer dance, the tiger dance, and a grand kagura performance
were carried out in this region in the summer of 2012 for the first time since the earthquake, student
volunteers took part from the preparatory and practice stages, and when it came time for the actual
performances the people of Kirikiri joined them in taking part. To the student volunteers Kirikiri238offers a more appealing and radiant local community over Tokyo, which is where they live. This isdemonstrated by the fact that once the students visited Kirikiri the majority of them became repeat
visitors.
Support must be provided for the “Increase of agents who are capable of freely surmounting
and rewiring the existing fixed scale of municipality-prefecture-country-international community”(Nakazawa 2012: 211). Therefore, consideration must be given to the question of what sorts ofroles cities should play within regional urban arrangements and urban networks. We must also
grasp the changes in urban systems and the changes in the structures of the social worlds of thepeople that live in them, while also giving thought to how such systems can survive today when
they are being confronted with declining populations. These are the demands being placed on 21st
century urban sociology in Japan.
(ASAKAWA Tatsuto, Meiji Gakuin University)

Contact Information
Japan Association for Urban Sociology
URL: http://urbansocio.sakura.ne.jp/english.html
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