京都市近郊山地における廃村化の機構と要因

抄録

This is a comparative study, from a micro-geographical viewpoint, on the village desertion process pattern in the case of two small hamlets-Ogose and Ohmi-in the mountainous tracts of Kyoto City (commonly called the Kitayama district), only 20km north of the center of the city. The examination has been made chiefly in terms of the change in the number of the households in each village that has taken place during the period of more than a century since the early years of the Meiji era.
The two hamlets, now deserted and completely extinct, were located in the northern part of Kyoto City, on the eastern edge of the Tamba highland, topographycally a pene-plain, from which the Ado River rises and flows down into the Lake Biwa, the lagest in Japan. A chain of passes lie between the Kyoto basin and these villages.
Ogose was situated at the altitude of 660m. above sea level and Ohmi 610m., they were among the highest of all the mountain villages in the Tamba highland. The average temperature is 0.2°C. in January and 25.8°C. in August, those settlements are colder by 7°C. than the Kyoto basin. As to the transportation, there are only two narrow motorable roads leading to the center of Kyoto, both in an extremely bad condition. It is a two or three hours' trudge to the nearest bus-stop.
In 1885 the two villages had 15 households each, and after World War II there existed 7 in Ogose and 19 in Ohmi. However, a series of village desertion of the whole household type began in Ogose in 1969 and in Ohmi in 1971, and continued, until the former finally reached a state of complete desertion and extinction in 1972 and the latter in 1973.
The difference in the number of households prior to this incident simply reflects the difference of population inflow from outside and branch families; in 1965 the household that had continued to exist ever since the time preceding 1885 untill the day of desertion was 5 in Ogose and 6 in Ohmi.
The processes of desertion of settlement can be divided into three stages: the Meiji, the Taisho, and the Showa periods.
(1) The Meiji period: 6 households in Ogose and 11 in Ohmi deserted their villages and half of them moved into Kyoto. The social status of the villagers who left their home was the lowest and they had to call themselves “drop-outs”. The ‘absorption power’ of the big city in those days was not yet great enough. Compared to Ohmi, Ogose remained more stable, as it was located further away from the city. It can be said that they were economically subject to Kyoto through charcoal business, whereas culturally they were still under the influence of the lake district with its long, deep-rooted tradition from the Edo period; Ogose rather thrived as a transit place, commercially and culturally.
At the close of the Meiji there emerged a new transportation means of raft along a branch of the Ado River to carry out charcoal, which had made them involved in the big Kyoto culture area; Ogose was reduced to an unimportant position placed at the furthest edge of the great cultural and economic sphere of Kyoto.
(2) The Taisho period: 6 households deserted each village (totaling 12), and 9 out of those moved into Kyoto. The group included a small number of what may be called positive job change type of desertion by the upper class villagers, but the majority were of the bankrupt type of desertion. This penomenon relates to the cultural and economic expansion of Kyoto, and its urbanizational effects were also felt upon those mountain villages.
(3) The Showa period (up to 1965): the impact of Japan's social and economic disturbances was great to those hamlet and the ‘absorption power’ of Kyoto for some time seemed to cease and become less great. An epoch-making huge demand for charcoal and timber checked the trend of the outflowing of village populations.