Abstract
This paper highlights the major trends and issues of retail geography in Japan. This paper reviews studies on retail geography after the mid- 1990s in the following on framework: That is the urban geography focusing on the retail locational studies. In the 1990 s, the Japanese government relaxed the restrictions under the Large-scale Retail Stores Act. As a result, many retail areas in built-up areas have decreased, while suburban large retail stores have increased. In 1998 , Government established the Large-scale Retail Store Locational Act and the Central District Vitalization Act, and revised the City Planning Act. These three acts constituted the "Three Acts of Machi-zukuri （Urban Development）". After the middle of 1990 s, many geographers have been interested in "Machi-zukuri" and the development process in central district. Most of papers on Machi-zukuri focused on the relationships between the decline of central districts and suburbanization of large-scale stores. After the 1990s, papers on retail areas analyzed the type of stores, the behavior of store owners in retail areas and their environment elements, for example, the retail planning policy, the revitalizing action and others. By researching retail areas in many aspects, we can find the factors sustaining the retail areas and explain the reason why retail area has changed. While there are relatively many studies about the economic effects of the changes in retail areas, there are few studies about social effects of the changes in retail areas. However, most of these studies are not interested in analyzing the urban retail system. Therefore, we do not have precise knowledge about the contemporary retail system in Japanese cities. We need to establish the new framework for analyzing the urban retail system for Japanese cities.
