Coal-producing areas experienced declines ahead of the rest of the country. We believe that clarifying transformation patterns of those areas will provide knowledge that will contribute to the planning of residential areas in the shrinking society. However, to understand the shrinkage process, it is necessary to understand the peculiarities of the formation mechanism of coal mining settlements. Therefore, this study aimed to reveal the construction process of coal mining company housing in the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine which is a representative example.
The methodology is as follows. we studied the construction process of coal mining company housing by the historical records of Miike Mining and Miike Port Office, Company Housing Registry (Shataku Daichō), the information of architectural approval applications, documents of Teruo Takematsu, data of the applications for building confirmation, and Company Housing Plan of Miike Mining. Second, we divide the construction process of coal mining company housing into periods based on the social condition, and developments of the coal mining industry and coal mining company housing areas. Third, we plotted the construction process of coal mine company housing on the map for each period category.
Through this study, we made the following things clear; 1) In Mitsui Miike Mine, the construction of coal mining company housing can be divided into nine periods: Phase 1 (1889-1902): the founding period, Phase 2.1-2.1 (1903-1924): the southwest move period, Phase 3 (1925-1935): the stagnation period, Phase 4 (1936-1944): the construction promotion period (the wartime regime), Period 5 (1946-1948): the construction promotion period (the postwar reconstruction), Phase 6 (1950-1958): the intermediate period between increased production and decline, and Phase 7 (1961-1997): the decline period.
2)In Phase 1, construction activities were taken place near the mine shafts near the outcrop. In Phase 2.1, construction activities moved to the south with the mine shaft development (coal mining company houses for officers were built near the office and the port). In Phase 2.2, construction activities of coal mine company housing for miners moved to the southwest with the mine shaft development. In Phase 3, construction activities moved to the west even under the recession. In Phase 4.1, construction activities of coal mine company houses for miners began to be observed in the east and west regardless of the mine shafts' location. In Phase 4.2, coal mining company houses were built in the east and west regardless of the location of mine shafts. In Phase 5, construction activities were carried out over a wide area from east to west, regardless of the mine shaft's location. In Phase 6, construction activities were carried out over a wide area from east to west. In Phase 7, construction activities were concentrated in the western part near the mine shafts. In the company housing plan, the policy was to maintain the coal mine company houses in the northwest near the mine shafts.
From the above, we can infer that we can classify the formation process of coal mining settlements into (1) the modernization process, in which coal mining settlements move along the geological structure, (2) the production increase process, in which coal mining settlements expand under the influence of social conditions and national policy, and (3) the decline process, in which coal mining settlements shrink again along with the geological structure.
