Abstract
The purpose of this study is to clarify the image and its regional background of cities in the Hokuriku District, Central Japan. The methodological framework consists of three preparatory questionnaire surveys, semantic differential (SD) method combined with direct factor analysis, and step-wise multiple regression analysis.
Through the preparatory surveys, 18 municipalities (shi) were selected for the analysis as well-known Hokuriku cites in the Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa and Fukui Prefectures, and 12 pairs of bipolar adjective words were gathered as the rating scales of the image evaluation in the questionnaire of the SD method. Undergraduate students of Kanazawa University located in Kanazawa-shi, Ishikawa Prefecture are the subject for the SD questionnaire, as well as the three preparatory ones.
In order to extract the dimension of the city image, the evaluation data derived from the SD questionnaire was subjected to the factor analysis by the direct method, which does not standardize the data and thus starts with the cross-product matrix. Step-wise regression analysis was also utilized for searching the regional characteristics for the backgrounds of the image dimensions in the Hokuriku cities.
As a result, three image dimensions were obtained. The first can be interpreted as 'yearning' for city since it is concerned with the adjectives 'urban' and 'lively'. Commercial activity and population size affect this dimension. In the Hokuriku cities, the most desired cities are Niigata-shi and Kanazawa-shi, where commercial activities have been highly concentrated and the population are largest.
The second dimension is interpreted as psychological distance, or imaginary 'separation' for city. Real distance to a city increases this separation, and the population size of the city decreases it. The third is 'hesitation', which arises for far distant and industrial or transportation cities. On the other hand, the hesitation is less for Kanazawa-shi, the nearest city for the students, and Wajima-shi and Kaga-shi, which are tourist and spa resort places.
