To cite examples in the vicinity of Tokyo, the festivals of traditional towns such as Chichibu, me, Kawagoe, Koga, Sakura, Narita, and Sawara are all carried out on these lines. With the expansion of large cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, Shinto shrines forming a number of separate foci within the city developed, and each came to hold its own festival with the cooperation of the ch nai of its own district. In areas such as Setagaya, where what were once agricultural communities have been incorporated into suburban housing areas, it is just the same, insofar as individual shopping areas in districts around shrines take part in their festivals, forming a procession with their portable shrines. Another, New Year s, custom known as hatsumode involves visiting the local shrines to pray for freedom from illness and other misfortunes and prosperity for the family business during the year to come. Before the festival, officials of the ch nai even in Tokyo, distribute envelopes within the area containing human figures made of paper.
Shrines vary greatly in size, depending on the size of the area in which their parishioners live.
In the Setagaya district, the Setagaya shrine has a ring and a kind of arena for the audience for such sumo bouts. Local businesses are the most enthusiastic about these festivals, and one might say that, in practice, businesses play the leading roles in them. As the area is built up, so that the number of families increases and more funds become available, they will, for example, order a more splendid portable shrine, or have happi coats made especially for the festival, or arrange festival events in which they invite entertainers to perform on temporary stages. Thus, insofar as the inhabitants of a locality are basically expected to give precedence in playing their roles to communal objectives rather than to individual gain, the ch nai in the traditional town has a pronounced quality as a local community in the same way as the kumi in the agricultural areas. Although nowadays the social norms governing the community have declined, one may say that Japanese towns no less than agricultural communities are characterized by an absence of mobility among residents and a stable organization with communal traditions.