2020 Volume 66 Issue 4 Pages 299-323
The purpose of this paper, under the symposium's theme, “The economic geography of machi in metropolis,” is to organize the arguments about the community economy as the mainstay of a major metropolitan area's economy, and to offer a perspective for exploring an economic geography of machi (streets and downtown). After presenting conceptual arguments in the first half of the paper, the second half features specific examinations based on case studies in the City of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, and in the Nipponbashi district in Naniwa Ward, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture.
First, the paper questions the awkwardness of popular discourse in recent years, in which Japan's unique expression, Machizukuri (neighborhood or town planning), is discussed in the context of neoliberal, large-scale urban redevelopment efforts made in downtown areas, seeking to strengthen metropolitan economies. The theory of Machizukuri was originally a theory of community building by downtown residents. However, this has changed. This paper argues that one of the reasons for the change might be that the prevalence of area management, as offered in the theory of Machizukuri, which was developed mainly in urban planning, might have suppressed the goal of restoring communities and their residents' livelihoods.
The paper then offers an alternative perspective on the theory of Machizukuri by exploring the potential of the theory of community economies in curbing the trends towards public and political spaces. The theory of community economies has been debated in Japanese economic geography since the 1990s. Central to this debate are the activities of entrepreneurs who serve as stimulants for downtown and the individuals who are involved in the service economy and subculture, and the openness, tolerance, and inclusiveness that embrace these actors. The paper then proposes that in considering the mainstay of a major metropolitan area's economy, we need a perspective that can nurture the community economy in the intimate downtown rather than the theory of Machizukuri, which is biased towards a neoliberal argument, in tandem with the strengthening of metropolitan economies.
