This study examines the store opening adjustment by a large-scale retail store based on the Large-Scale Retail Stores Location Law, focusing on the store opening process and the reaction of local residents. The large-scale retail store opened in front of Takanohara Station on the Kintetsu Kyoto Line in Heijyo-Souraku New Town, which straddles Nara and Kyoto Prefectures. The opening of the store was made possible by the matching interests of the land owner, who wants to effectively use the vacant land, and the retailer, who is trying to gain an advantage over the regional market after the deregulation of large retail store locations. On the other hand, local residents who were concerned about the possible deterioration of living environment intervened on the store opening adjustment by submitting their written opinion regarding the contents of the store opening notification to the Kyoto Prefecture, who is administering the Large-Scale Retail Stores Location Law in the area. In response, Kyoto Prefecture handed down an opinion asking for improvement of the contents of the store opening notification to the land owner. Thereafter, the land owner and retailer repeated talking with some residents toward the store opening. In contrast to the Large-Scale Retail Store Law, the store opening adjustment of a large-scale retail store under the Large-Scale Retail Stores Location Law does not restrain the store opening itself. The opinion handed down by the governing body under this law, asking for improvement of the contents of the store opening notification in response to demands from some of the local residents living near the store, shows the necessity of discreetly considering the living environment when locating large-scale stores in the residential area.

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This study reveals the spatial characteristics of the local supply chain based on the questionnaire survey of sellers in the street markets of Kochi City. In particular, this study elucidates factors in sustaining the street markets in decline all over the country through the analysis of the sellers' behavior from goods procurement to sales. Most sellers gather and offer their crops, flowers, fruits and vegetables, or tea for sale. However, it is confirmed that the sellers have decreased in number and have been growing older. Many married couples comprise both partners as sellers. There are many married couples that find new retail channels except the street market. However, face-to-face selling is an asset of the street market wherein sellers enjoy communicating with their customers and attain fulfillment in their work. At present, although sellers intend to continue their business, it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure successors for many of them.

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The study reveals locational factors of convenience stores in Kochi City from geographical conditions. The locational pattern of convenience stores in Kochi is different from that in other Japanese cities. Many of the stores were found in places other than along main road in the early stage of the 1980s, when the first store was opened in Kochi City. On the other hand, the number of the stores along main roads increased in the 1990s. The stores have been concentrated in the inner-city area or their trade areas have diversified since the 2000s. The construction of expressways, one of the external conditions, is acknowledged as a factor that encouraged the entry of major convenience chains into the market and stimulated the changes in the local chain's location strategy. Especially, the local chain operates chain stores owned by other prefectural capital through area franchise. It became clear that the change in the conditions of contract became one of the factors which altered the locational pattern of the stores.

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In this article, I review an outline of the location pattern of retail stores since the 1990s from the viewpoint of the location control of retailing after the deregulation of the Large-Scale Retail Store Act. I summarize the results of the study, which show that the deregulation has affected the location of convenience stores, roadside shops and large-scale retail stores. Examples of the deregulation are the deregulation of operating under land development permission in urbanization control areas since the 1990s, the deregulation of operating under the development permission ordinance of Article 34, Sections 11 and 12 of the City Planning Law in urbanization control areas since 2000, and the deregulation of the Large-Scale Retail Store Act since the 1990s.

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The purposes of this study are to improve the food deserts map based on food accessibility and social capital. The study area is the city center of City A, Kanto district, Japan. An estimated 49 percent of elderly residents in a local city are in poor nutritional condition. Our analyses indicate that a decrease in social capital is the main factor that leads to a higher population of nutritionally depleted elderly in the inner city area, and inadequate access to food has the greatest effect on the outer edges of the city center. Previously, food desert issues were thought to be a social problem in rural areas and in local cities where small neighborhood shopping strips had closed, and shopping had thus become physically difficult for people without private cars. However, this study shows that reduced intimacy in people's relationships also increases the risk of food desert issues.

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This study considers Characteristics and change of commercial accumulation of Tokyo's Akihabara district from 2006 to 2013. It specifically focuses on small shops. The data was acquired through fieldwork.
Maid cafés (cafés with employees in cosplay or costume play) accumulated remarkably large amounts of zakkyo buildings (multiuse buildings containing offices, shops, and restaurants) on back streets in Akihabara district. These shops would repeatedly open and close down. Long-established stores had to close down due to the electric industry reorganization. Thereafter, chain stores of amusement and restaurants opened. Consequently, the street in Akihabara district progressively became a homogenized commercial space. In addition, Akihabara district reduced the resemblance of shopping as a category of business.

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In the United States, gated communities have increased over recent decades. These are residential areas with restricted public access, where the affluent classes segregate themselves by means of walls, fences and gates. Scholars have studied the psychology of self-segregation, its social and economic context, and the physical features of gated communities. However, geographers can also contribute to the understanding of gated communities by confirming and evaluating the residential form in the regional context by means of mapping. Based on field surveys conducted in central Orange County of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, land use maps were drawn confirming 117 gated communities. Having grouped these into three types, they were then mapped to analyze their landscape features. By accumulating case studies of segregated residential areas, we are able to present an overall picture of the fragmented nature of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area.

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Tradition of horse-riding falconry and eagle capture custom has been still practiced at a nomadic community of Altaic Kazakhs in Bayan-Ölgii Province in western Mongolia. Eagle hunters normally capture their eagles either from the nest or with net/ trap from wild. According to the eagle master's rule, hunting eagles used to be released to the wild again when they reach 4–5 year-old adult by reason of sexual maturity. Nevertheless this tradition endorsed by Kazakh's environmental guardianship, it is now under disappearance and even has been turned into business opportunity for income acquisition with exchange or sales or eagles. With my interview works, captured 222 eagles and separated 167 eagles were specified from 1963–2014. Although new participants are stagnated, a number of captures is gradually increasing for these years. In addition, traditional capture and release custom is not actively chosen, and then “death” and “escape” dominated 38.0% of all separation. This means that TEK and philosophy of nature guardianship need to be succeeded and re-stressed among local horse-riding falconry.

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In this study, the author try to show “(culturally defined) Noto region”, from the viewpoint of the expansion of the region based on utilization of seaweed and fish sauce, Ishikawa Prefecture. From confirming variations in the use frequency of 10 kinds of seaweed by a local resident, certain use of seaweeds is continuing in area north of Hakui-city. In particular, in Oku-Noto, seaweeds are being use widely and much. This area range can be considered Noto region as seen from the seaweed utilization. On the other hand, in all research area, fish sauce is having low frequency utilization at daily meals compared with seaweeds. In addition, the frequency of utilization of fish sauce is showing great difference between Oku-Noto, the south region of Oku-Noto and Kaga. More than seaweeds, fish sauce can be positioned as the food of Oku-Noto, and as one of ingredients to capture expanding of Oku-Noto.

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From the results of the “2014 Census of Commerce” released in December 2015, we can grasp a commercial trend in Japan for the first time in seven years since the release of the results of the “2007 Census of Commerce” in November 2008. The reason for this situation is the establishment and conduct of “Economic Census” in 2012. This paper summarizes the changes in and uses of Census of Commerce by conducting the Economic Census. Conducting a census based on the actual condition can enable us to understand and analyze the new business conditions in Japan. However, we have to be careful with a chronological comparison of the data because methods and objectives have changed over time.

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This article analyzes the characteristics of the cultural and creative industries in Germany with focus on political measures by examining five German federal states in correlation to the policy-making process and its spatial characteristics. Over the last decade, the recognition of the cultural and creative industries as a new economy has highly increased. It is assumed that the political measures regarding the cultural and creative industries in Germany, especially with high relevance to urban space, have great influence on the urban economy and the urban restructuring process.

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The modern geography of Japan is based on the European and American thought. On the other hand, in Japan before it, thought to rise from China formed the basis of the Japanese thought and culture. It was the thought of Taoism, Yin-Yang, Wu-Xing. The Japanese until the early-modern times had the faith on a sacred land by this thought. At first, this paper explains about the thought of Taoism, Yin-Yang, Wu-Xing, and Eto (celestial stems and earthly branches) constructed by Yin-Yang and Wu-Xing. Next, this paper explains about the concept of the time and the space constructed by Eto. This paper reads the faith of Mt.Fuji by Fuji-Kou in the Edo-period at Edo using Eto of Kanoe-Saru. This report suggests to reconsider the real world of the Japanese until the early-modern times lived in, using the thought of Taoism.

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In this study, spatial structures, characters and visitors of ‘tourist temples’, which are open to unspecialized visitors paying admission fee, of Buddhism in China are analyzed using results of research on 5 temples in Shanghai. There is a general pattern of placement of halls in precincts of temples of Chinese Buddhism. Temples with narrow precincts near central district of Shanghai make many efforts to follow the pattern. Generally, tourist temples have characters as religious spaces, tourist facilities and cultural properties (or cultural heritages). A character as religious space of tourist temples in China is clearer than in Japan. Visitors to tourist temples in China tend to pray to every statue of Buddha with Kowtow. Most of these temples have halls for memorial tablets of dead adherents. These temples have also a character as tourist facilities, or rather as facilities for various commerce and service industry including tourism. In contrast, a character as cultural properties of these temples in China is less clear than in Japan.

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze a series of exclusion incidents concerning modern Japanese Christian groups in the 1930's and to make the nature of “landscapes of exclusion” clear by analyzing those incidents.

This paper highlights two cases of Christian groups- the Mino-Mission in Ogaki city, and Catholics on Amamioshima—in 1930's Japan and verifies some discourses of both the excluding and excluded sides. As a result, we can state the following: 1. In the case of the Mino-Mission incident, it can be verified that there were not only local and national discourses of exclusion but also global ones. 2. In the incident of Amamioshima's Catholics, many discourses and practices had a double context; national and local. 3. Through these two incidents, it can be confirmed that various discourses have been given, concerning these Christian facilities, which have changed the elements of “landscapes of exclusion” embodied in the narrative about the justification of exclusion.

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This study aims to compare diffusion of Mt.Iwaki belief in Tsugaru district of Aomori Prefecture and Hokkaido Government, to general structure of religious sphere, made clear by the preceding studies. Mt.Iwaki belief has features of natural worship, on the other hand political influence of Tsugaru-han, the local authority during the Edo period. Therefore, the sphere of Mt.Iwaki belief limited the same area as the territory of Tsugaru-han, and Hyakutakuji temple on Mt.Iwaki supported by han, was negative in the organized activity that belief is expanded. After Meiji period Tsugaru-han's control was abolished, shaman who is called kamisama, and unorganized people took initiative to expand Mt.Iwaki belief. A part of them built subordinate shrine of Mt.Iwaki in Hokkaido, and diffused belief. But such activities didn't last a long time, because Mt.Iwaki belief was unorganized, and didn't fully root.

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Since the 1980s, geographers have studied about the distribution of worshippers in temples, shrines and holy mountains in Eastern Japan. They have accused that a thin distribution of worshippers occurred due to competition between holy places that give people the same propitiousness or proximity to local neighborhood. However, geographers have not adequately clarified this situation. In this study, I will further investigate the competition between holy places in Shonai district, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan by interviewing the local residents.

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This study explores the visiting behavior of residents of new towns, in this case, Kinunosato in Joso City, Ibaraki Prefecture, during the New Year. It was found that most of Kinunosato's residents visit shrines and temples not associated with their family or hometown. Generally, residents in new towns are people who have moved there from various areas, they do not exhibit such behavior. We should explore the behavioral patterns of residents in new towns as well as the changes in their choice of guardian that are not associated with their family, in order to understand visiting behavior during the New Year in the postwar period.

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In this paper, is intended to clarify the actual situation and the factor of the tangle around the land between religious community and local inhabitants, in the sacred space for the new religion that developed during the history of urbanization and religious oppression. As a research method, focusing on Tenrikyo underlying the holy city plan “Hacchoshiho Koso”, in Tenri, Nara. And I followed the negotiation process of the local inhabitants and Tenrikyo Church Headquarters surrounding the planning area, and the local inhabitants against the planning. As a result, about 90%of local inhabitants were surveyed, was Tenrikyo believers. Nevertheless, it was found that about 45% of those surveyed, is holding a conflict in this plan. As factors,①Gaps between the religious ideology Tenrikyo Church Headquarters has and the doctrine inhabitants think,②Weakness of knowledge sharing about “Hacchoshiho Koso” of local inhabitants, ③The negotiation about land is carried out in the only Tenrikyo Church Headquarters and the land owner.

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