抄録
The writer has tried to make analysis of the agglomeration of the branch offices of large companies in four cities-Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, all being the most outstanding central places of the relevant regions.
Agglomeration of the branch offices is conspicuous in the cities which have higher centrality. In July, 1966, there were 1300-2000 branch offices in the regional central cities such as Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Fukuoka. And that, agglomeration in these four cities is quite large as compared with their urban scale (Fig. 1).
According to the industrial classification of their head offices, about 70% of these branch offices are either manufacturing industries or wholesale and retail trade, and 47-53% of their head offices fall in the capital group with over 100 million yen, implying the branches of big businesses.
Number of employees of the branches is not determined generally by the enterprise scale but mostly by the business in charge or economic environment in the business area. Consequently, 80% of the branch offices are with less than 30 employees.
The head offices are mainly found in Tokyo and Osaka. In the cases of Sapporo and Sendai, the proportion of Tokyo head offices occupies 59-62%, whereas for Hiroshima and Fukuoka, but it is lower for Sapporo and Sendai. Namely, the location of the branch offices greatly depends on accessibility and mobility from Tokyo and Osaka.
Establishment of the branches in the four cities became common after World War II, and has been conspicuous especially since 1960 (Fig. 2). Concentration in the four cities started in the order of Fukuoka, Sapporo, Hiroshima and Sendai, and this fact nearly accords with the order of the number of branches.
As mentioned above, concentration and agglomeration of the branch offices of companies have corresponded to the very fast economic growth of Japanese capitalism. It has become quite clear that the big businesses have actualized the control over the regional economy through the mechanism of arranging regional functions.
