In this paper, looking back at the separate histories of national land policy, industrial location policy, and regional innovation policy in Japan, the author analyzes the contributions to and problems of geography in those regional policies. From the viewpoint of geographical studies, it is obvious that the Japanese National Land Policy had its origin in the prewar period and shows both sides of continuity and noncontinuity from the prewar to postwar periods. As an alternative idea of the national land axis, proposals of regional cooperation corridors by geographers were important to the 5th Comprehensive National Development Plan “Grand Design for the 21st Century” in 1998. The recent theme is how to construct local living areas with digital technology during population decline. Under the industrial location policy, the main target has shifted from the local dispersion of factories to the creation of industrial agglomerations since the start of the 21st century. What has become a topic of discussion is whether the central government or local governments should take the initiative for the development of such industrial agglomerations and how to consider the meaning of inclusive growth as a new viewpoint for regional economic policy. On the other hand, it is necessary to recognize the importance of spatial aspects in the innovation policy considering two viewpoints, not only the spatial flow of knowledge but also technological trajectory adherence. The key message of the Association of Japanese Geographers President’s lecture is, “Please act positively, with confidence, about the social value of geography.”

Employing a set of underused data, this study investigates home-based work and workers in Kanagawa prefecture in the era of tremendous economic growth from a sociospatial viewpoint. Home-based work is a type of paid labor done at home, most of which comprises manufacturing-related operations. Analysis of the survey data depicts the geographical differentiation of home-based workers based on the commodities they produce: home-based workers in the core of the Keihin industrial district tended to be engaged in fabrication, whereas central Yokohama was a hub for machine sewing. High demand for home-based work was found in districts where local economies were suffering from the reduction of US military troops.

The lower the household income, the more it is likely to conduct home-based work. Although this trend remained unchanged, the relationship between socioeconomic strata and the type of home-based work changed with economic growth. By the 1960s, the progress of industrialization resulted in relatively well-paid machine fabrication home-based work, necessitating neither specific skills nor apparatus. Simultaneously, some home-based workers who wished to gain extra income to improve their finances preferred hobby-like home-based work such as knitting or embroidery, which required high skills but paid poorly.

The latter part of the study analyzes the reports written by students who participated in a survey of home-based workers in 1964 as part-time surveyors. The reports vividly describe the relationship between microscopic geography and the existence of home-based work. It was true, as they frequently wrote, that home-based workers were liable to reside in shabby downtown areas. Simultaneously, the study implied that the student surveyors confirmed the prejudice that home-based work was a popular work style among the poor, although their reasons for choosing home-based work were diverging.

This analysis also aims at an intervention in studies on the history of social research. The studies so far have tended to ignore the differing priorities among agents involved in social research. While Kanagawa prefecture, the promoter of the survey, intended to collect inclusive information on home-based work through a statistically accurate survey, it entrusted the student surveyors with the method to sample 3% of the households from the target districts. The student surveyors, who preferred to reduce the effort needed, sometimes confessed in the reports that they tended to select tractable, compliant households that appeared well-off and thus less likely to be familiar with home-based work for the survey samples. Therefore the process through which data are produced should always be examined.