During the last two decades, the redevelopment of the central area has become a common policy issue in local cities. This paper discusses the mechanism of the redevelopment of the central area of local cities from three perspectives: institutional environment, urban politics, and small retailers' strategy. The case study draws on the redevelopment of the central area of Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, which consists of a land readjustment project implemented with a large amount of public investment. The mechanism of the redevelopment in Matsumoto is outlined as follows.
In the early 1980s, the administration of the city and the association of small retailers in Matsumoto coordinated to promote the redevelopment of the central area. The redevelopment, however, made little substantial progress through the 1980s. One explanation for this is that the central government reduced specific subsidies to local governments during this period. Another explanation is that individual small retailers in the central area were oriented toward maintaining the conventional business environment.
The deregulation of the Large-scale Retail Store Act in the late 1980s marked the turning point in redevelopment of the central area. With the rapid penetration of large-scale retail stores in the suburbs and the advent of a new mayor who adopted developmentalism as his policy, the administration preferentially invested in redevelopment which was justified by the political slogan “;city growth, ” and enhanced the promotion of redevelopment in collaboration with several local organizations. While the promotion of redevelopment would bring great benefits to small retailers, they did not necessarily collaborate with the administration and adopted various strategies to earn their living. Their strategies generally fall into three categories: 1) withdrawing from the central area because of soaring property taxes and a diminished sense of community; 2) remaining in the central area by converting into a tenant owner; and 3) advancing into the central area with the increasing supply of commercial properties. Consequently, the diversification of small retailers' strategy encouraged the prompt implementation of land readjustment and the administration-ledredevelopment.

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Utilizing spatially distributed air temperature monitors, we studied the frequency and temporal characteristics of the thermal belt over the western slope of Mt. Tsukuba, located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Automated observation at 10-minute intervals was carried out for 90 days from November. 3, 2002, to January. 31, 2003. Long-term observation of the thermal belt with such fine temporal resolution is unprecedented and has made the quantitative study of the thermal belt based on a large number of cases possible. Throughout the observation period, the nighttime minimum temperature on the slope of the mountain was higher than that on the plain at the foot of the mountain. Particularly in November, while temperatures lower than 0°C were frequently observed on the plain, the temperature on the slope was always above 0°C, which revealed a distinct bias toward warmer temperatures. While the nighttime temperature distribution over the plain showed no bias toward a temperature warmer or colder than 0°C, a distinct warm bias favoring temperatures above 0°C was observed on the slope. The criterion for the thermal belt event was defined as a temperature inversion between the slope and the plain of greater than +2°C and persisting longer than 10 hours. Thirty-seven to 47 cases of the thermal belt constituting 42-53% of the observational period were found, with no particular differences in frequency amang months. In a typical thermal belt case, the temperature on the plain cooled rapidly around sunset, leading to a temperature inversion between the slope and the plain. Subsequently, the temperature decrease over the slope became gradual, thus maintaining a sustained level of temperature inversion throughout the night. Similar results were seen in the composite temperature field for the thermal belt cases. While the temperature in the center of the thermal belt became colder toward January, the extent of the inversion increased slightly. The temperature field also revealed a zonal structure of the thermal belt centered near the northwestern slope with an altitude of 200-300m throughout the night.

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Active tectonic structures recorded in late Quaternary basin-fill sediments and geomorphology were elucidated, with special reference to the type of Quaternary tectonic movements in the Shinjo basin, Northeast Japan. The eastern part of the Izumita lowland (a small alluvial basin) is bounded by the Shinjo-higashiyama reverse fault. It is a tilting basin because the basin sediments are tilted toward the Shinjo-higashiyama fault. Hilltop surfaces (ca. 300 ka), which are deformed locally by reverse faults, are distributed widely in the Shinjo Basin. This shows that the Shinjo Basin has uplifted regionally at least since the Middle Pleistocene. The separation of hilltop surfaces from the Izumita lowland was caused by simultaneous tectonic movements such as regional uplifting and displacement of the Shinjo-higashiyama fault.

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