In the rcrevious literature, the existing urban svstem is a result of Iocational behavuor of office firms. In reality, however, the urban system is also a determinant of firms' location. That is, there are interrelationships between the formation of the urban system and the location of office firms. In this paper, location of branch offices, which plays an important role for spatial behavior of firms, is examined what feature is observed under the existing hierarchical [Christa11er-type] urban system. This is analyzed by mainly comparison between industries. In preparation for the analysis, a 'city rank' is set up in the section II. This rank is determined by three factors; city population, retail market area population, and the number of establishments of [branches of] major administrative organization, so that the rank is independent of location of firms. Analyzed are manufacturing firms listed on the first section of Tokyo Stock Exchange, and headquartered in Tokyo. These firms are classified into 24 industries.In the section III, overall tendency of location of branches is overviewed. Branches are agglomerated upon high-ranked large cities such as Osaka, Nagoya,Sapporo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, and Sendai, which are named the regional core cities.From a nationwide viewpoint, the city rank and the number of branches are strongly correlated each other. Further, 'city order' is set up according to Chiristaller's market principle. The lower the city is ordered, the less the average number of branches is. Especially, the average number in the second order amounts to more than twiceas large as that in the third order.In the section TV, the location of branch firms in each industry is compared. The average number of branches is, in general, large in comsurner goods industries, and small in intermediate and capital goods industries. It also correlates significantly with degree of agglomeration of branches to high-ranked cities, which is the index of spatial concentration of branches. While there are many branches dispersed throughout Japan in consumer goods industries [e.g., medicine], there are few branches concentrated in large cities in intermediate and capital goods industries [e.g., textile]. These differences come from by behavior in each industry's markets,In consumer goods industries, firms have to collect information on customers'demand and tastes, and contact with their retail and wholesale stores. In intermediate and capital goods industries, however, information is standardized by contractin advance, and there are few customers.

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In our modern society, we cannot afford to ignore problems of environmental pollution. To begin with, I shall introduce a view of these problems as observed by Prof. Yoshida. He explains that the problems of environmental pollution result from the disturbance of "metabolism between humankind and nature". Then I define "metabolism between humankind and nature" as flow of energy and the cycles of materials in ecosystems. Next, I consider the principle of population by T.R. Malthus, the coal ques-tion by W. S. Jevons, and the fourth law of thermodynamics by N. Georgescu-Roegenfrom the view point of "the regulating principle" and "the principle of increase".Then I wish to demonstrate that the concept of "perfect recycling" is impossible.I reconsider the meaning of "recycling" in our modern world. Currently, we recycle products both manmade and natural strictly from the standpoint of the exhaustion of both input factors and economical capacity for disposal of output waste. While some scientists argue that they view "general circulation of atmosphere" from the standpoint of entropy theory, I argue that many of these scientists are actually considering this phenomenon utilizing the traditional concepts of the"steady state" theory, and not entropy theory. Then, I introduce five fundamental paradigms of environmental mattagement by M.E. Colby. I coment upon Ecological Economics, which is developing now. In this society, I think that the traditional analytical constructs do not always hold perfectly. There is not one best way to understand how economic geography interrelate with ecosystems. Finally, I argue that metabolism approach and economic geography are c1ose1y related. A lot of industrial locations may cause the disturbance of "metabolism between humankind and nuture". So, in order to grasp regional structure, it is necessary to consider environmental pollution with metabolsm approach.

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There are two purposes in this paper. One is to review the studies of socialindicators, level of living, and quality of life, and the other is to present a perspective for the study of living environment. Many studies from social indicators to quality of life have been made at the regional and national scales. However, each of these scales contains heterogeneous areas within it. The scales are too large to.ana1yze spatial variation of living conditions. For this reason, the community scale is suitable for analyzing living environment. In analyzing living environment, it is necessary not only to measure the quantitative aspect of the living environment within a community, but also to evaluate the qualitative aspect of it. Such a qualitative side as the satisfaction level with the living environment has not beenconsidered in the traditional studies because of the difficulty of measurement. By incorporating subjective evaluation into objective measurement, however, we can understand how the residents are satisfied with their living environment .Further the living environment should be evaluated by the measurements of accessibility. Especially, it is important for the study to measure the number of accessible opportunities around a living point under the constraint of geographical distance or time-geographic framework. This measurement analyzes the spatial variation of living conditions and is useful to improve the living environment. Multicriteria evaluation techniques are valuable methods to evaluate living environment multi-dimensionally by integrating various indexes. In the future, Geographic Information Systems with multicriteria evaluation techniques will be used to construct a system to represent, analyze, and evaluate living environment.

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the spatial structure of the hand-tools' production-distribution system in Sanjo, Niigata Prefecture. The companies called MOTOUKE play essentially important roles for building up the local production system in this area. They have organized subcontractors and established their unrivaled position in term of the product distribution. Becouse of their entry to this industry far lagging behind the makers located in the Kansai Region, they have had to diverse their products and outlets for their benefit. As a result of this, MOTOUKE actually became possible to take more flexible responses to the change of business environment. However, in a broader sense, they act as the agents of the external control. The unfair relationships between MOTOUKE and companies located in other regions have influenced on changing local production system as well as production cost. In many cases, MOTOUKE specializes in producing single product. The subcontractors under them can be divided into two groups. One is the group with the advanced technological knowhow. They are mostly located within the town. Another group consists of the lowest unit of the local production system based on the side business of farming families surrounding the town. From these analysis, one aspect of capital accumulation could be made clear.

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