Abstract
A satellite cityis, in a broad sense, defined as a medium or small-sized city located around a large city and developed in close relation with it, sharing its functions. Among the satellite cities in Japan, those centering around Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya are the most typical. The satellite city of one type, a suburban residential city, has rapidly developed with the expansion of the large city itself. Another type is an old local city generated as a relay station town, a castle town or a port town, which, due to the recent expansion of the metropolitan region, developed into an industrial city or an industrial-residential city.
Functionally large cities have two inclinations; one toward centralization and the other toward decentralization. By the latter inclination, factories, schools and residences becomes dispersed over the surrounding area of the central city (Fig. 1). The traffic facilities help accelerate the dispersion, thus developing satellite cities. They have, as a residential district, a school town or an industrial city, a functional share of the large central cities. Such relations are also to be seen in the living zones of cities. Citizens of the satellite city are closely tied together with its central city in their daily life, majority of them working, shopping and amusing themselves there.
The satellite city is an intermediate unit between the large city and the local city. It is semi-independent. Residential districts in the large city have a large going-out population, while the civic center in it and the local central city have a large coming-in population. But the satellite city has a population both going-out and coming-in. Satellite cities structurally consist of old districts which were formerly the city areas, and the new districts which have newly been annexed and expanded into suburban areas. Thus the satellite city has a dual character.
Among the three satellite city groups in Japan, the cities around Osaka have developed foremost, and these around Tokyo followed them, being most affected by World War II. The cities around Nagoya have recently shown a remarkable development (Fig. 2). The differences among them reflict the geographical conditions in each metropolitan region.
Fig. 1 Types of the formation of satellite cities.
Fig. 2 Distribution of satellite cities around Tokyo (top), Nagoya (middle), and Osaka (below).
Explanation notes; (A) Population unit … 10, 000. (B) Date … Year of municipalization.
