THE PRESENT STATUS OF URBANIZATION STUDIES IN JAPANESE ACADEMIC CIRCLES OF GEOGRAPHERS

Abstract

Recently Japanese geographers have taken interest in urbanization studies to a considerable degree. The purposes of this study are to put the results of urbanization studies in order as well as to systematize them so as to recognize the present status and to examine a possible course of future urbanization studies.
It is after World War II that the interest in urbanization studies increased among Japanese geographers, whose tendency is keeping pace with the development of urbanization in this country since the War. As to the concept of urbanization, some definitions were revealed, which may be classified into both the narrower sense stressing landscapes and the broader one laying emphasis on functions. Efforts have been made for establishing theories of mechanism causing the recognizable urbanizationn phenomena. At the present stage, studies are made along the line for an understanding of spatial and regional mechanism of urbanization, such as “centralized urbanization and decentralized urbanization” and “contiguous urbanization and leapfrog urbanization”, by means of its ecological process analyses.
In order to understand the regional characteristics of urbanization in Japan, urbanization stages, comparison among suburban areas, characters as regions, and the like have also been studied concerning Tokyo-Yokohama region, Osaka-Kobe region, Nagoya region, Tohoku district and also Japan as a whole. For the future studies of urbanization the spatial or regional aspects are stressed, the ecological approaches are supported, and the establishment of principles of urbanization is postulated not only for an academic purpose but also for the purpose of social contributions as an applied phase of geography.
As a conclusion through this study of recent literatures concerning urbanization, it should be necessitated to accumulate more case studies along the present direction of urbanization study as mentioned above.