This paper focuses on a typical local town, Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, and clarify how this town accepted the City Planning System, which became the national standard, through the local government’s efforts to acquire the management base.
The City Planning Act of 1919 had been standardized to apply to local cities throughout the country. The law was amended in 1933 and it was applied to towns and villages that met the conditions. On the same time, it was a time of Regional Improvement when local towns and villages were required to merge with one another and to carry out self-management preparing basic property as a basic municipality.
Adjacent to Takayama Town, Ohnada Town actively promoted an urbanization plan within the own town area, but just before the merger, it was adjusted to a connection with Takayama. On the other hand, the vision of management in a wide area as “Mountain Capital” including the post-merger was shaping up in Takayama Town. In other words, in a small city with limited developable area in a mountainous region, the policy of expanding the network of surely connecting bases over a wide area had become clear through the leadership of Mayor Naoi.
It was after Naoi became the mayor in 1921 that the town had an active urban vision as an organization. In the early days of the vision formation, hilly area had been planned and developed steadily into parks with the noticeable relationship to the Japan Garden Association. At the same time, there was a task to overcome the disadvantage of the ‘Hida side’ to access Japan Alps, which attracts huge attention as a national park candidate. Then Hida Alps Club was established that sought to connect Takayama with Mount Norikura and Japan Alps. A personal network which connected Mayor, personages, officials, and national engineers become the mother body of "Mountain Capital" concept that created a foundation that contributed to sightseeing. As a result, Mayor Naoi acquired a comprehensive plan centred on the park system in the suburb hilly area and the tourism road connecting with the Japan Alps. Together with the four towns and villages, a city planning area was decided based on this concept similar to the regional planning.
This concept had been nurtured since before Takayama became a city planning city, and formed as a comprehensive city management plan in conjunction with the parks and roads construction regardless of the city planning area. The main projects contained in this comprehensive plan were in accordance with the city planning standards, but carried out steadily with coordinating among the related parties, without waiting for the city planning decision. The designation of this city planning area became the climax of the primary city planning in Takayama. In the process of regional reorganization, simplified city planning system for town and village played important role outside the planning system, as a framework to bundle up infrastructure developments necessary to control various actors and resources in order to promote regional management.
