2017 Volume 69 Issue 4 Pages 467-484
Social area analysis of central Tokyo in the postwar era has only been conducted since the 1970s because census tract or grid square statistics were not used prior to this decade. Additionally, the census tracts and grid squares were too large in scale to reflect the geomorphological effects on socio-spatial patterns. The purpose of this paper was to make high-resolution social maps of central Tokyo by using the enumeration districts (EDs)—the smallest enumeration units—of the 1965 and 1980 population censuses and a geographic information system (GIS), and to examine the changes that occurred in this period. For central Tokyo, the printed ED maps of both censuses are accurate enough to produce geographical data through georeferencing procedures and tracing. The 1965 social maps, especially those of the proportion of workers by occupation, display clear contrasts between eastern (Shitamachi) area and western (Yamate) area, as well as between hills and valleys in Yamate. They also strongly reflect the premodern employment styles that originated from live-in apprenticeships in retail and wholesale areas. Nevertheless, these characteristics disappeared to a certain degree in the 1980 maps. Three important reasons for this are that factories and deteriorated housing facilities, i.e. slums, were demolished, the progress of infrastructure development, especially subway construction, improved locational conditions for residential quarters and commercial activities, and modernization of the empolyment style led to a separation between the residential and working place. As a result, contrasts between Shitamachi and Yamate appear more sharply in the social maps and statistical figures of 1980.
