Abstract
This paper aims at making clear from both historical and spatial aspects how and by what reasons the owner-ccupation has spreaded in urban areas of Japan by means of taking the cases of 24 main cities into consideration. The conclusion concerning to historical change is summarized as follows: 1) Before the war, the private renting was the dominant tenure of urban housing excepte for housing located in the suburbs of the big cities and several new industrial cities rapidly urbanized, where the sign of the growth of the owner-occupied sector was emerging. 2) The remarkable increase of the owner-occupied ratio from 22.3% in 1941 to 41.3% in 1948 causes to an enormus degree by the war damage and the housing constructin immediately after the end of the war, which determined the changing direction of housing tenure after the war. 3) For the postwar period, the change of a distrubution ratio of housing tenure has been caused mainly by rapid urban growth, especially the intensive concentration in metropolitain areas throughout the period of the high economic growing and the amount of new rental housing has sharply reflected on it. While the number of owner-occupied housing has constantly increased throughout the same period and as compared with the renting, the owner-occupation is more stable and accumulative as tenure type. On the other hand, through the spatial ananlysis, it became clear that there were several differet patterns in the increasing process of the owner-occupation, the main two patterns are as foolows : 1) Metropolitan type・・・ After having accumulated the private renting, owner-occupied housing has increased in parallel with the real urbanization. 2) Local type ・・・In the cities where urbanization has been inseparably related to the incorporation of rural areas, the owner-occupied ratio has risen through the increasing number of a farmhouse and being based on it, the real urban housing has been formed on the side of the owner-occupied sector. Most of cities of Japan are subject to the latter model and it means that the tenure of a farmhouse has significantly contributed to the expantion of the owner-occupation. The ratio of the owner-occupied has been determined not only by the factors which caused the change in the national level as mentioned above, but also by the special factors of each city such as historical and cultural characteristics concerning to the choise of housing tenure.
