The street fashion of Tokyo has garnered widespread global attention. Particularly, Ura-Harajuku, where specialty store retailers of private-label apparel (SPAs) are clustered, is famous for its original designs. This paper has two objectives. The first is to examine the factors contributing to the agglomeration of SPAs in Ura-Harajuku. The second is to investigate the effects of this agglomeration on the reorganization of apparel production. K-function analysis and an interview with a developer were conducted to examine the factors contributing to the agglomeration. The effects of the agglomeration were determined through interviews with representatives of retail stores and trading companies.
The shift of store locations to the residential area of Ura-Harajuku began in the late 1980s. This new location reduced the value of Ura-Harajuku as a residential area and, through the 1990s, more retail stores continued to locate in this area. Since the 1990s, many young designers have opened stores. A prominent apparel manager in Harajuku has supported these stores. Their success resulted in the participation of other entrepreneurs in Ura-Harajuku.
The agglomeration has had a two-fold effect on the apparel production process. First, SPAs began to use consumers as a source of inspiration for their designs. The agglomeration of retail stores attracts many consumers to Ura-Harajuku. These fashion-conscious consumers observe each other on the street to refine their own styles. This interaction produces sophisticated street fashion in the area. SPAs in Ura-Harajuku take advantage of this sophisticated street fashion, that is, they use street fashion as a source of inspiration for their designs.
Second, through trading companies, the agglomerated retail stores started to outsource the manufacturing process of their goods to overseas sewing companies, which were mainly in China. Although SPAs place these small-lot orders, trading companies also outsource large-lot jobs to sewing companies in China. Sewing companies find it difficult to earn profits from small-lot production, and the acquisition of large-lot jobs helps sewing companies to remain profitable. Trading companies that collect contracts of different sizes can therefore open retail stores that incur low-cost overseas outsourcing.
In conclusion, SPAs in Ura-Harajuku use street fashion to produce unique apparel designs. As people visiting Ura-Hrajuku are very fashion conscious, their tastes as consumers are highly differentiated. The different needs of such consumers can potentially create the demand for unique niche fashion. This potential demand will be supported by the availability of unique clothing in Ura-Harajuku. The number of fashion-conscious consumers in Ura-Harajuku is expected to decrease owing to Japan's low birth rate. Numerous consumers who visit this area are important for the production of unique designs. An increase in the number of overseas consumers who visit Ura-Harajuku will help Tokyo maintain its position as a global fashion mecca.

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This study clarifies trends and factors in internal migration of Japan in the 1940s, including during World War II and the postwar reconstruction period, through cohort analysis using the total results of population by age in population surveys from 1944 to 1946 and the extraordinary national census in 1947. The results are described below.
First, nationwide cohort changes from 1944 to 1947 were examined. The results revealed that each cohort of males changed dramatically due to military service, war deaths, and military demobilization, while changes in female cohorts were relatively small. Next, prefectures were classified by cluster analysis based on the population ratio by single-year age in 1944. The results showed that the young male labor force in rural regions concentrated into urban areas, and the tendency was affected by the development of military industries.
From 1944 to 1945 with the end of the war, much of the population migrated from large cities and military industry areas to rural areas because of evacuations. The evacuations were not conducted systematically, except for student group evacuations, and people relied on relatives and connections based on recommendations in choosing evacuation sites. As a result of back-flow evacuation relying on relatives and connections, many people evacuated to areas from which large numbers of the population had migrated to Tokyo and Osaka. Migration due to evacuation was seen in all age-groups, which is a major difference compared with the usual population migration pattern. Both domestic migration and military service affected population migration among men, and the labor force drastically decreased in new military industry areas.
Finally, the processes of population recovery in large cities after 1945 were examined. It was found that the population in Tokyo and Osaka had recovered to that in around 1940 by 1955, but the population was approximately 60% of that in 1940 when the population in relation to the various cohorts was compared. Hence, births and the inflow of new cohorts played a major role in population recovery in Tokyo and Osaka after the war. The reason why the cohort size did not recover in large cities was probably due to factors such as food shortages, delays in reconstruction, and the control of population inflow to urban areas. In addition, new male successors were necessary in rural areas due to the large number of war deaths.

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The leather bag and purse industry in the eastern part of Tokyo developed as a typical intrametropolitan form of commerce based on external economies in the inner-city area. Although many other consumer goods industries in Tokyo have faced severe competition from overseas operators during the era of globalization, this industry has not only expanded the scope of its production bases to other Asian countries but also maintained domestic production within the metropolitan agglomeration of its home country. This study aimed to elucidate the factors sustaining the local agglomeration of the industry in the eastern part of Tokyo through analysis of transaction linkages and interfirm communications under the social division of labor seen in the field. The analysis targeted manufacturers that took orders from wholesalers/apparel firms and controlled their production using outside contractors.
The results showed that manufacturers maintain strong ties through face-to-face contact with their customers and outside contractors, and that this tendency in interfirm communications is an important factor sustaining the intrametropolitan agglomeration of the industry. The study also showed that the degree of dependence on face-to-face contact varies with different business partners and production stages. First, there is a strong dependency on such contact between manufacturers and their customers because of the need to share mutual ideas, visions, and tacit knowledge. Second, there is also a strong dependency on this type of contact between manufacturers and material suppliers because materials such as leather are problematic in terms of standardization and coding and are nonhomogeneous. Third, in terms of linkages between manufacturers and outside contractors, cutters and leather compressors (who rely on nonstandardized skills) favor face-to-face contact with manufacturers both during preproduction and in the volume production stage. This dependency on direct contact is attributed not only to information characteristics and technological factors but also to the bustling nature of the industry.
Unstable demand and uncertainty in markets with tight production schedules can also be cited as other characteristics of the leather bag and purse industry. In this context, spatial proximity among related firms and the closeness of face-to-face contact play important roles in the continuing local agglomeration of the industry.

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In the UK, the policy (re) turn debate emerged in the late 1990s. One of the most important reasons for this was the establishment of the Blair-New Labor government, which introduced evidence-based policy making and sought evidence from academics. The aim of this paper is to trace this debate and consider what is required for producing academic work that constructively contributes to public policies. For this purpose, the author studied debate articles dealing with the relevance of modern human geography that appeared in the most influential journals and were written by renowned academics. The main findings are summarized as follows.
Among the most important points of focus of the policy (re) turn debate are the evaluation of various approaches that emerged in the anti-quantification movement in terms of policy relevance and the extent of relevance. In this debate, it was insisted that qualitative research featuring recent cultural and social geographies and geography in itself make significant contributions mainly to local-scale/government policies. Nevertheless, certain serious problems such as poverty and inequality cannot be solved by local-scale/government policies alone. Therefore, examinations and proposals for policies in the upper tiers of governance and designs for intergovernmental relations remain as further tasks.
This debate clarified that geographers need to devise strategic, multitrack practices to make constructive contributions to public policies. According to Kevin Ward's classification, activist geography and participatory geography have the potential to lead public opinion toward establishing alternative societies. On the other hand, policy geography requires its researchers not only to theorize and write on research but also make their writing easily accessible to influential policy makers. In this regard, the research should be both of a high standard and exhaustive, while at the same time contain effective strategies for dissemination, depending on its purpose.
The above findings provide important suggestions for geography studies to make constructive contributions to public policies not only in the UK but also in the rest of the world. The policy (re) turn debate only identifies such geography studies and provides the manner in which research methods are to be selected and combined for effective utilization. On the basis of this debate, we must apply the above suggestions in our own research practices.

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This study analyzes the processes of formation and change in commercial accumulation in the urban central region of Tokyo's Akihabara district. In addition, it analyzes location changes of various business firms in 1954, 1973, 1989, 2000, and 2006. The data are from fieldwork, large-scale maps, and guidebooks.
Electrical shops accumulated in the Akihabara district after World War II because of comparatively low land prices in this area. Thereafter, the main goods sold in the area changed to home electrical appliances, personal computers, and animation products. Long-established stores were the first to sell personal computers and animation products. Subsequently, the number of new shops increased near Akihabara Station. The number of animation shops was particularly remarkable. However, animation goods represent unnecessary technical knowledge. As a result, the accumulation advantage was reduced, and sales volumes decreased in the 2000s. However, small shops accumulated, maintaining the specificity of commercial accumulation. They moved into zakkyo buildings (multiuse buildings containing offices, shops, and restaurants), which had low rents, and these small shops are important in the Akihabara district.

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This paper examines how the nationwide distribution system for summer Chinese cabbage produced in Nagano prefecture influences the spatial price difference in wholesale markets. Macro data analysis yielded two main results: 1) There is a strong correlation between transportation cost and the regional average price. 2) Within a region, if the costs of transporting goods from Nagano to the wholesale markets are the same, Chinese cabbage prices in large markets are close to the regional average. However, the prices in small and medium markets are negatively correlated with quantity.
These results can be explained using three points, which were derived from interviews with wholesalers and JA Zenno Nagano, which is a major economic agent within the distribution system. 1) JA Zenno Nagano provides a pricing guideline applied to all transactions in the nation. Therefore, the average wholesale price within a region is strongly correlated with the cost of transporting goods from Nagano. 2) Small and medium markets refer to prices in the large markets. Therefore the prices in large markets are closer to the regional average price. 3) The negative correlation between wholesale price and quantity among small/medium wholesale markets is caused by two factors: higher costs of transporting goods raise prices in small-scale markets if they do not have direct access to JA Zenno Nagano; and small markets tend to deal with relatively high-quality Chinese cabbage to sell to local supermarkets. Therefore, the average Chinese cabbage price in small markets is higher than that in medium-scale markets.

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