Japan is the world’s second most powerful economy and one of the most urbanized nations on earth. Yet the English-language urban literature has relatively little to say about cities in Japan. This omission seems all the more striking when one contemplates the intriguing questions Japanese urban development raises for social theory and comparative urban research. For example:

1. What role did the city play in Japan’s transition from feudalism to capitalism?

2. How does the urban experience of Japan, a late but successful developer, compare to that of economically advanced Western capitalist nations, on the one hand, and dependent third-world...

With the Meiji restoration of 1868, Japan abolished the feudalism of the shogunate and embarked upon a course of modernization. Before exploring the growth of cities in modern Japan, this essay gives a brief account of cities in the Edo era (1603–1868). Unfortunately, sources from the era give inadequate data on the size of cities. They indicate the number of commoners only, excluding the warrior class, which may have constituted a sizable portion of the urban population. Fortunately, the national government established after the Meiji restoration began publishing population figures for all cities in Japan. The earliest disclosed that...

The Osaka metropolitan area was once the center of the Japanese economy, but today the Tokyo metropolitan area has taken over that position. This essay discusses the relative decline of the Osaka metropolitan area, with special reference to the city of Osaka, the causes of the decline and policies for restructuring. The relative decline of Osaka is similar in some respects to the decline of big cities in the United States and Europe, but at the same time it is totally different. An analysis of these similarities and differences provides a basis for a comparative theory of the city as...

The history of Tokyo has been one of cycles of meteoric expansion and radical restructuring. From its ascendence as Edo, the nation’s center of military-political power in the early years of the seventeenth century, to the new era of internationalization in the late twentieth century, these cycles have radically altered Tokyo’s social, economic, political, and physical structure.

The unification of the country under the Tokugawa shogunate and the construction of Edo Castle beginning in 1603 initiated the first cycle of rapid expansion. Samurai, merchants, craftsmen, and a host of other new urbanites arrived in such great numbers that within a...

Kanagawa is in the Kanto region, south of central Tokyo. It is one of the prefectures forming greater Tokyo. The Kanto region first became important in the twelfth century. In 1192 a feudal government was established there by the Minamoto family. Its capital, called Kamakura, was located in Kanagawa. Later, in 1603, the Tokugawa dynasty established its capital in Edo, which became present-day Tokyo. Because Edorrokyo has been the capital of Japan since then, the Kanto region has been the center of Japanese economy, politics, and culture.

Several historical events brought about significant changes in Kanagawa. In 1853, Commodore Matthew...

The appreciation of the yen since September 1985 has accelerated the internationalization of the Japanese economy and greatly changed its internal structure. Business enterprises have quickly adapted to new situations brought about by the yen’s high value. Companies of all sizes have staked their very survival on cultivating new demand and internationalizing their operations. These corporate initiatives in turn are changing the domestic economic structure.

Today, the Japanese economy has entered a new stage of growth pulled by domestic demand. The expansion of the home market is commonly attributed to the strong yen and the government’s fiscal policy. The strong...

The Nagoya metropolis is Japan’s leading industrial area with about 10 percent of the nation’s manufacturing output. Nagoya’s remarkable industrial development is the result of outstanding growth in the local automobile industry, promoted mainly by Toyota Motor and Mitsubishi Motor. Its economic growth has also been accelerated by the redevelopment of the aerospace industry, led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

The agglomeration economy generated by Nagoya’s modern auto and aerospace industries also includes new research and development institutes. The Japan Fine Ceramics Center established in 1987 symbolizes Japan’s new industrial revolution. This research center has close links with traditional ceramic-producing areas...

Our study of Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota City focuses on the interplay between local corporatism and urban economic development in Japan. Toyota Motor Corporation is currently the world’s most successful car manufacturer. Corporations in every automobile-producing nation are trying to copy the “Toyota system,” much as manufacturers patterned themselves after Ford’s mass-production techniques in the 1920s and General Motors’ administrative structure in the 1950s. Toyota’s competitive advantage is often attributed to work organization and sophisticated use of technology (Cusumano 1985). But there is another side to the Toyota success story. Toyota Motor Corporation is lodged in Toyota City, a...

Postwar Japanese economic development can be divided into three stages: the postwar recovery period, a high-growth period, and a low-growth period. The 1980s, the stage of low growth, have been a major turning point in Japanese society and economy. Changes are in progress at three levels: Japan’s position in the world economy, Japan’s domestic economic system, and Japan’s regional economy. Ongoing changes at all three levels must be borne in mind when we analyze the particular problems facing cities and towns in Japan today.

Although postwar Japanese economic development has attracted world interest, Japan’s position in the world economy in...

Heavy industries such as steel, chemicals, shipbuilding, and other forms of metal fabrication played a critical role in propelling economic growth in Japan between the 1950s and 1970s (Kosai 1986). Annual steel production, for example, grew from 10 million metric tons in 1955 to 120 million tons in 1973, while the gross tonnage of ships built jumped from 829,000 to 15.7 million over the same period.¹ As domestic and export demand for the products of Japan’s heavy industries expanded in the immediate postwar decades, there was massive investment in new plant and equipment. Government (especially MITI—the Ministry for International...

During my first visit to Japan in 1979, a professor of economics at one of the former imperial universities much admired the urban legacy of the British in Asia. He fretted that Japanese planners had made no lasting contribution to the geographical organization, patterns of urbanization, and physical and spatial character of overseas cities. In hindsight, his thoughts were premature. As part of a link between the urbanization process and global economic forces, Japanese planners have begun to make their mark on the development of cities, the spatial organization of society, and the built environment, particularly within the western Pacific...

What, in the final analysis, is distinctive about Japanese urban development? What sorts of issues does Japan’s urban trajectory pose for social theory and comparative research? In concluding, we highlight several arguments running through the contributions to this book.

1. Global interdependence. For over a century, Japanese urban development has been intimately intertwined with Japan’s changing position in the world system.

2. Flexible production systems. The interplay between global forces and city development in Japan has been mediated by the capacity of the Japanese to reorganize their systems for producing goods and services flexibly in response to external political and...