Abstract
This article aims mainly to analyze the process of leadership formation and transformation of local groups in Tokyo and the ways individuals were involved in territorial and social change since the first World War. An area chosen for the case, former Shitaya ward (present Taito ward) had been characterized as a “Low City” containing mainly small shops and factories mostly operated as family businesses.
This study has two targets. Firstly, I have tried to trace the historical transformation of the neighborhood association called “Chonaikai” in Japanese. Secondly, I have analyzed the life -trajectory of some locally-notable persons who had got involved with neighborhood groups in the process of global and local social change in modern Japan.
Chonaikai, as a basis of neighborhood communication and cooperation, needs some capable leaders to meet various claims of residents. There had been the shift of leaders from traditionally established notables to new arrivals in this area in the course of several decades. The latter, starting as new comers to the urban area, succeeded in establishing themselves as self -employed, a member of the old middle classes (petty-bourgeois). These new arrivals were strongly motivated to become involved in community affairs. Especially in the aftermath of the earthquake of 1923, they had chances to show ability in coordinating neighborhood activities such as food distribution or evacuation programmes to temporary homes. By engaging more actively on these community affairs associated with civil services, they met with much recognition and realised upward mobility and established their status and prestige as influential persons. As a result, leadership was held by these newly upwardly mobile people and by contraries, traditonal members began to lose their socio-economic superiority in the pre-war period.
