During the third great wave of mergers of municipalities in Japan, major mergers in the Heisei Era were undertaken from 1999 to 2010, about 50 years after the second wave of major mergers in the Showa Era (1953 to 1961). In comparing the two waves of mergers, the geographic and financial conditions of municipalities differed significantly. Based on high economic growth rate in Japan after the major mergers in the Showa Era, metropolitan cities developed remarkably in central Japan, while small municipalities of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants had become much more numerous in 2000 than in 1960 in nonmetropolitan areas. Most of those small municipalities subsequently experienced deteriorating financial conditions. Thus, the central-peripheral structure in all areas of Japan became apparent. As a result, more small municipalities in nonmetropolitan areas merged compared with larger, richer municipalities in the areas surrounding metropolitan cities.
When investigating municipal mergers, it is important to consider them not only from the administrative and financial aspects of municipalities but also from daily living areas and population scales. This study attempted to investigate how daily living areas and population scales of municipalities were taken into consideration in the major mergers in the Heisei Era by regarding commuting areas of a city as daily living areas. By comparing commuting conditions of municipalities with actual mergers, each municipality was classified by the type of merger. Although most municipalities adopted commuting areas (daily living areas), in many cases new municipalities were formed within the same commuting area rather than expanding the territory of a central city.
It was estimated that the merger patterns of municipalities were principally formed under the influence of the central-peripheral structure in the following order: a few municipalities merged in the suburban areas of metropolitan cities as well as large nonmetropolitan cities where many rich municipalities with populations of more than 10,000 were located, and they often rejected merging with large cities. Within commuting areas of larger cities, as mentioned above, new cities and new municipalities were created by merging small municipalities rather than expanding their territories markedly. In the areas surrounding medium- and smallsized cities, the territories themselves expanded, and then new municipalities were formed by merging small central places with surrounding rural municipalities. In mountainous areas and on remote islands, many small municipalities remained without merging based on their narrow daily living areas. Therefore, adaptation to national settlement systems played an important role in municipality mergers in the Heisei Era in comparison with adaptation to central place systems in the Showa Era.
However, there were many exceptions. Numerous municipalities remained without merging mainly because of unsuccessful negotiations between the relevant municipalities. In addition, on the one hand lone areas such as detached pieces of land appeared; on the other hand, two neighboring municipalities that utilized separate daily living areas rarely merged with each other.
Although the number of municipalities had decreased from 3,232 to 1,727 by the end of March 2010, the governmental goal of 1,000 municipalities was not reached. The organizations of regional unions (koikirengo) and partially functional unions (ichibujimukumiai) should be fully utilized in the administration of small, unmerged municipalities. In addition, it appears that those municipal mergers that were vigorously executed in nonmetropolitan areas could contribute to promoting rather than reducing regional disparities between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas or between urban and rural areas.

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This paper discusses trends based on interdisciplinary reviews of research conducted on the environmental history of the Chinese Loess Plateau. It also reveals problems related to the research and indicates the direction of future studies on this topic. Different hypotheses have been established in this field regarding the environmental history of the Loess Plateau. For example, historical geographers have assumed that the artificial destruction of vegetation accelerated soil erosion and led to an increase in the frequency of flooding of the Yellow River, whereas geologists have tried to refute this assumption by claiming that the vegetation decline was caused by the cooling and aridification of the climate. This controversial disagreement on the influence that human activity and climate change had on soil erosion in the case of the Loess Plateau still exists because the scale of both the corresponding types of research in this case differs. To overcome this problem, the present study focuses on landforms as indicators of temporal and spatial scales. Many conventional studies have analyzed the environmental history of the Loess Plateau by assuming that the landform divisions that existed in the past were the same as those existing at present, even though these landform divisions have been changing over time. It is therefore essential to clarify the environmental changes that occurred on the Loess Plateau on the basis of landform developments. Using the viewpoints of landform division and landform development, it is possible to elucidate the influences of human activities and climate changes on soil erosion in the Loess Plateau, which could not be clarified using conventional research methods.

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This study aimed to clarify how the features of the supply strategies of condominium developers reflect the diversification of both household structure and housing demand in central Tokyo. As part of the study, representatives of the “major seven” developers were interviewed and data on condominium supply were analyzed.

From the late 1990s, various types of condominiums have been available in central Tokyo. In particular, the supply of “compact” condominiums, which feature small living spaces like the studio type, has increased. The major seven developers have started to supply compact condominiums since 2002; the majority of these condominiums are occupied by single women. Since the beginning of the 2000s, households comprising singles in their 30s and 40s, when home ownership in Japan peaks, have begun moving into central Tokyo. The owner occupation of such small-sized households was thought to be accelerated by the supply of compact condominiums. From around 2005, however, the condominium market has witnessed a decline, and the average price of condominiums exceeds the budget of single women. In addition, during the same period, central Tokyo was reevaluated as a residential area, and thus its popularity among nuclear families, single men, and young and elderly couples increased. Therefore, some developers preferred to build super high-rise condominiums for single men or nuclear families. Each of these projects consist of more than 100 housing units; apart from compact housing units, these projects include units comprising various types of apartments.

Under these circumstances, the major seven developers adopted different supply strategies for compact condominiums. First, a branding strategy was preferred by some developers who mainly sold luxurious condominiums in central Tokyo. These developers established brands that corresponded to the income, household size, and residential preferences of the residents. Second, some developers preferred to provide affordable compact condominiums in surrounding wards in Tokyo. They did not establish specific brands for compact condominiums, but originally preferred to build in surrounding wards in Tokyo. They then discovered housing needs for compact condominiums in their market areas and started selling compact condominiums.

Due to the implementation of these supply strategies by the major seven developers, condominium supply in central Tokyo diversified. We plan to examine topics related to this study, such as choice of residence and residential segregation in central Tokyo, in the near future.

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This paper examines the locational behavior of university spin-offs (USOs) established in Japan. According to the simple conventional viewpoint, it is characterized only by geographic proximity to the parent university because of the necessity to reduce the cost of collaboration. This paper emphasizes the diversity and dynamism of the locational behavior of USOs based on the results of a questionnaire survey of 151 USOs.
To identify and explain their locational patterns, USOs are classified into four types based on two criteria. The first criterion is the relationship between USOs and parent universities, which is classified as “strong” or “weak.” The relationship is considered strong if there is daily contact between a USO and the parent university; more specifically, direct participation of professors in commercialization of R&D results, employment of students in a university, and joint study indicate a strong relationship. In the absence of such contacts, the relationship is considered weak. The second criterion is the nature of business domains of USOs, which are classified into “product-oriented” or “service-oriented.” USOs in product-oriented domains are mainly involved in R&D, for example, life science, machinery, and materials. USOs in service-oriented domains tend to be involved in sales, marketing, and customer support, for example, IT software and education. By multiplying these two criteria, four types are derived: the strong-product (SP), strong-service (SS), weak-product (WP), and weak-service (WS) types.
The results of the analysis are summarized as follows. First, type SP firms value proximity to their parent universities, because they need a constant transfer of scientific knowledge or utilization of research facilities. Second, type SS firms also consciously locate near the parent university to utilize other resources like specially educated students and support offered by the university. Type SP and SS firms remain near the parent university for a long time, and thus their locations are distributed nationwide including peripheral regions. However, dynamism of the locational behavior is found among them. Some establish branch offices as sales centers in metropolitan areas. Others locate their headquarters in metropolitan areas and set up branch offices as R&D centers near the parent university. Through this spatial division of labor, they have easy access to the market while maintaining proximity to the university. Third, type WP firms have two patterns. One is firms managed by retired professors without collaboration with the university. Although they also locate near the parent university, it is not intentional. Because they do not value access to the market, their locations remain in peripheral regions. The other pattern is firms that have no connection with the university at the time of establishment, but develop ties thereafter through R&D activities, for example, licensing from the university. They do not consider continuing collaboration with the university and locate in metropolitan areas. Fourth, WS firms value access to their customers, instead of the geographical distance to the university. They easily change location and most are concentrated in metropolitan areas where many customers exist.

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