The role that a city or area serves changes along with the times. This study aims to survey the roles of local central cities, particularly how postwar Sendai City changed.
    The first of these characteristic is the economy of Sendai centered on branch offices of major companies, a so-called branch office economy, beginning during World War II. Population increased due to military installation location, and the area became a business base for major companies. This trend continued for a while after the war, but during the high economic growth period of Japan the local branch offices in local center cities expanded to be given the management capability to supervise business activities of each location. At the same time, sales competition between companies intensified, and the business activity enlarged in each location in the whole of Japan. Therefore a territory system was established. However, this role of local central city branch offices changed after the Bubble economy. In other words, company organization changed through the progressive innovations of computerization, globalization, the introduction of a post mass production system, and, finally, in the long-term recession which followed. Following on these changes, the role of the branch offices in the local center city also changed.
    On the other hand, the pulling power of shoppers in local central cities increased because the transit system developed during this same period. Furthermore, the nationwide advance of large-scale retail stores increased the pull of customers in the retail trade within Sendai City. Lately, however, this trend is changing due to the penetration and expansion of internet shopping after 2000. The wider centrality of the retail trade did not disappear, but is seen with an expanding demand for services in Sendai City. These services include festivals, art events, professional sports, and conventions. Watching these events and games, and the participation in these are the consumption of services and can be regarded as consumer behavior basically not so unlike that of the sales of the retail trade. However, the expanded participation in planning and administration of such events is seen here, too
    The local central core city nature has changed with the times. However, as for base characteristics, it is not just that former characteristics and functions have been replaced by new ones; rather it seems more proper to say that they have become multilayered.

    The author reports on changes in Hiroshima since 1985, especially in recent years, by analyzing population flow data (migration, commuting, and trade area surveys), improvements to the transportation network, and recent development trends in several facilities. Changes in Hiroshima as a regional capital city were also considered.
    The population of Hiroshima has increased by 13.6 percent over many years since 1985. It has increased particularly rapidly in the suburban wards, where many residences have been constructed on hillsides. In terms of migration, inflow from peripheral prefectures and outflow to large metropolitan areas (around Tokyo and Osaka), have declined significantly.
    In terms of commerce, the centrality in the CBD (Haccho-bori, Kamiya-cho) has declined remarkably since 2004. Suburban shopping centers have lured customers away from the CBD, and competition between the CBD and the suburbs has been replaced with competition between various suburban shopping centers themselves. Suburbanization has progressed on many levels.
    In the CBD, some office buildings have been reconstructed into condominiums to deal with the prevalence of vacant offices. It seems the need for office space has grown stagnant in Hiroshima. High-rise condominiums are increasing in the redevelopment area in front of Hiroshima Station. Although some office buildings are being constructed there, the accumulation of business functions is unremarkable.
    Moreover, the position of Hiroshima as a regional capital city has waned as a result of the combination and reorganization of the branch offices located in the city. While over-centralization has been progressing in Tokyo, the position of Hiroshima as a “branch office economic city” has been reduced, likely because Hiroshima is located relatively close to Tokyo and Osaka. In contrast, Fukuoka, which is farther away from both Tokyo and Osaka, has been expanding in recent years.
    Many new hotels are being constructed in Hiroshima recently. It can be assumed that business trips to Hiroshima have been increasing due to the combination and reorganization of branch offices. Moreover, a large number of tourists come to Hiroshima from all over the world, most of them to see Hiroshima's two UNESCO world heritage sites (the Atomic Bomb Dome and Miyajima). Because of these activities, the characteristics of Hiroshima are changing.
    Whether Hiroshima is able to maintain its position as a regional capital city requires further observation.

    Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka have a central position in their respective regional blocks because of an accumulation of residential, economic, and political functions apart from the three major metropolitan areas in Japan: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya. For this reason, these four cities have often been treated collectively as regional central cities. However, according to recent social and economic indicators, Fukuoka is gaining traction when compared with the other three cities and is surpassing them.
    This paper analyzes the population of Fukuoka, which has shown remarkable growth, focusing on population migration as it is the main factor in this increase. In Fukuoka, net migration in the 20-29 age group is the largest among the four cities, and the net migration loss of the same age group to the Tokyo metropolitan area is showing a downward trend. In addition to employment opportunities, Fukuoka's attractiveness as a place of residence is considered a factor that encourages such population migration.
    In terms of the commercial function that has characterized the economic centrality of Fukuoka, as well as its branch office economy, despite the continued opening of large commercial facilities following the opening of the full length of the Kyushu Shinkansen line between Hakata and Kagoshima-chuo, its centrality is declining in Kyushu. Instead, visitor-attracting functions such as MICE and the acceptance of foreign visitors to Japan have shown remarkable growth in recent years. This is expected to become one of the new driving forces of the city's economy.
    Furthermore, with the goal of leaving the branch office economy, Fukuoka is focusing on supporting start-ups. However, efforts are still at a nascent stage. It is unknown at the present time whether companies that will lead the city economy in the future will appear or will remain located in the city when expanding the scale of their respective businesses.

    In this paper, I analyze the change in the industrial structure, the distribution of the population, the distribution of the workers and the ʻBranch Economyʼ in Sapporo after the collapse of the ʻBubble Economyʼ in Japan.
    In the period from 1996 to 2001, the population of workers in four regional central cities (Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Fukuoka) decreased due to the financial crisis and the depression caused by an increase in the consumer tax rate. The worker populations in Sapporo and Hiroshima, especially, experienced sharp decreases in comparison to Fukuoka and Sendai. Not only did the rate of workers in the construction industry, which is the basic industry in Sapporo, decrease but the rate of service industry workers also decreased at a level higher than that of Fukuoka. The rate of decrease in the service industry is one of the main causes of the difference in decreased rates of worker populations between Sapporo and Fukuoka. After this period, the difference of the rate of increase in worker population between Sapporo and Fukuoka was not so large, but the rate of increase of worker population in Sapporo was lower than that of Fukuoka.
    According to the National Census, from 1960 to 1995 the population of the urban center area in Sapporo, which is the area within approximately 3 km of the city center, continued to decrease and the population of the suburban area in Sapporo continued to increase. After 1995, this trend changed as the population of the urban center began to increase and the growth of the population of the suburban area started to stagnate and sometimes decrease. Contrary to this trend, from 1996 to 2006 the workers in the urban center decreased and in the area of more than approximately 9km from the city center the workers increased. In the area between approximately 6 km to 9 km from the city center the number of workers decreased, but the rate of the decrease was lower than the area within approximately 3 km from the city center. According to the Economic Census, from 2009 to 2014 the workers in the urban center decreased but the rate of decrease in this area was lower than the area between 6 km to 9 km from the city center. The number of workers in the area approximately 9 km from urban center slightly increased.
    According to the Establishment and Enterprise Census, the workers in company branches whose headquarters are located outside of Sapporo also decreased from 1996 to 2001 but after that period they slightly increased. According to the survey I submitted to these branches, the positioning of these branches slightly improved across the board. The percentage of branches which intend to expand is slightly larger than those of which intend to contract. In general, the economic condition of branches in Sapporo has slightly improved in recent years. But as the population decline in Hokkaido will continue in the future, the positioning of Sapporo branches will likely become severe.

    Japanese regional hub cities faced a turning point in urban growth in the late 1990ʼs. Although their economies had largely depended on the activities of branch offices headquartered in Tokyo or Osaka, a decline in the agglomeration of branch offices, caused by the structural changes in society, have been observed. Anticipating a continued decrease in population and substantial aging, regional hub cities have had to prepare to adapt by looking for alternative ways to derive sustainable vitalization of their urban economies from branch office economies.
    Fukuoka City has planned to make itself a hub in Asia, in tandem with promoting full-scale globalization. It has promoted the formation of an urban network which connects it with other principal Asian cities. In Sendai City, the fundamental direction of its comprehensive plan changed from growth-oriented to a post-growth orientation in the 2000ʼs. According to its comprehensive city plan in 2011, the ability of citizens and civil society organizations to solve various problems resulting from social changes was recognized as the most important factor in maintaining the cityʼs vitality. Moreover, greater cooperation between the local government and various civil society groups was requested.
    These initiatives of Fukuoka and Sendai Cities are consistent with the idea of individual city- centered networks in a post-growth society. These networks consist of horizontal linkages formed through the exchanges of ideas, information and people with other cities within and beyond Japan for the purpose of sustaining vitality. Reflecting on the scarce information on individual city-centered networks, it is necessary for local governments and other investigate the data available for various entities in each city, to make horizontal linkages with other, intercity entities and to gather feedback to put the infrastructure for such exchanges in place.