大都市近郊の都市化

-東京西郊を例として-

抄録

Following the rapid advance of the urbanization in Japan and all over the world in recent years, the studies on urbanization have become vigorous in geography. In the Association of Japanese Geographers, the committee of urbanization studies was set up, and it has been carrying on active discussions and researches on this subject.
The writer has studied the process by which the city functions, developing toward the urban fringes, incited the urbanization of surburbs, as in the case of the western suburb of Tokyo. There is in the western suburb of Tokyo an upland called Musashino, which used to be rural area. But with the expansion of Tokyo, the city functions, such as the great factories, universities, special hospitals and collective housing lots, advanced into this area.
Compared with other suburbs of Tokyo, the urbanization of the southern and the western suburbs is more remarkable. But the former have greater industrial functions, while the latter are prominent in the residential functions. The urbanization of the northern and the eastern suburbs fall behind that of the western suburb. The difference of the topographical conditions and the accessibility to the civic center between those areas is responsible for the lag.