Japanese economic geography has been mainly focusing on the production process of industry. In this paper, the author tried to situate the reproduction process of labor power and the next generation in the rightful place in studying the spatial configuration of postwar Japan. Japan has achieved population turnaround during 1950s because of popularization of artificial abortion. Many people who were born before the population turnaround migrated from rural areas to large metropolitan areas and filled brisk labor demand during the period of rapid economic growth. Thus, Japanese metropolitan areas, which were growth engines of Japanese economy, acquired the population structure with high percentage of working age people. Just as the first oil crisis occurred and Japanese economy had diminished in growth speed, population flows to the metropolitan areas had rapidly declined, because the main components of the flows had changed to the post-population-turnaround generation whose cohort volume was small. It was fortunate for Japanese economy not to retain surplus labor in metropolitan areas in the age of slow growth. Above mentioned story shows reproduction process of labor power and the next generation surely influence economic system and corresponding spatial structure independent of production imperative. Most people who move to the metropolitan areas put root in metropolitan areas and usually purchased detached houses. This movement expanded metropolitan areas outward and underpinned the sustainable rise in land price. After purchased, owner occupied houses became anchoring points of consumption. People actively demanded consumer durables thereby supporting the development of Japanese manufacturing companies. Virtuous cycle went on and the life of metropolitan dwellers was integrated into this cycle. The decentralization of industry begun in 1970s was based on spatial division of labor within corporate structure, and has established the hierarchical regional relationship. But simple center-periphery spatial structure was not enough to understand the whole process of decentralization. Tohoku, the northern part of mainland Japan, has received more manufacturing employments than Kyusyu, a big island in the southwestern part of Japan archipelago. This can be related to the difference of family system and structure of household economy between these two regions. Based on above mentioned empirical inquiries, the author reasserts that the reproduction process of labor power and the next generation had certainly been mounted in the economic system which enables the rapid economic growth and succeeding stability of economics of postwar Japan and thereby produced the spatial structure of the nation and large metropolitan area of that period.

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This study aims to clarify the direction of the renovation of the central commercial street in a small and medium local city using. Imabari City, Ehime Prefecture as a case study. It focuses especially on Imabari shoutengai okamisankai, a women's group comprising female store managers from the central shopping street of Imabari City and the wives of male managers, who are all affected by the decline of the central commercial street in Imabari City. The central commercial street in Imabari City was prosperous during the era of high-speed economic growth due to a boom in the shipbuilding and textile industries. But since the latter half of the 1990s, after deregulation of the large-scale retail store act, it has been in decline due to the opening of large scale commercial accumulations in the suburban area and opening the Shimanami-Kaido Line to traffic. The Imabari Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Imabari City Office and Cooperative Association of the Central Commercial Street of Imabari City had planned a variety of renovations to the central commercial street such as the large-scale redevelopment and effective utilization of vacant stores, but most of them broke down. Planned renovations for the central commercial street of Imabari City went nowhere. Under such circumstances, Imabari shoutengai okamisankai was founded in November of 2000 with support from Imarari City Office, which knew about the planned renovation of the central commercial street by women working in Matsuyama City. Imabari shoutengai okamisankai is independent from any of the existing organizations of the central commercial street. It engages in news-worthy joint ventures such as holding of the event and decoration of the street. Therefore, Imabari shoutengai okamisankai is recognized as an organization that contributes to the renovation of the central commercial street. But the operation of it is difficult because Imabari City Office cut the subsidy and there are fewer and fewer membership stores. From the case of Imabari City, it is clear that it is important for volunteer organizations without existing frameworks to renovate the central commercial street in small and middle sized local cities that are facing a continued and ongoing decline in commercial activities. That sustainable renovation can be based on the premise that commercial activity will be scaled down.

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Since 1980's, privatization policy has been implemented in Japan to promote fiscal efficiency. In consideration of current situation, this paper takes up the local bus services that deregulation has been done in February, 2002, and, considers how municipality responses to the deregulation and takes an attitude toward the public transport policy. As a case, the private acquisition of public bus of Gifu City from 2003 has been picked up. First, the networks of bus lines, the operation frequency and the fare as indexes of the bus operation have been compared before and after deregulation. As a result, the deterioration of the service in the transferred bus lines had hardly occurred. Meanwhile, operating expenditure and receipt had substantially improved. As a reason why such results come out, the measures such as contract clauses with a private enterprise and new subsidy system for unprofitable lines that Gifu city originally formulated worked effectively. In addition, like Omnibus town project and route restructuring planning, Gifu City sets forth its own plans to improve public transportation use, especially bus services, since 2002. In conclusion, with a privatization as a turning point, Gifu city fixes public transport in the center of transport system of the city and shifts its own functions from as an "operator"to an "supervisor" of the public transportations.

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[in Japanese]

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