The aim of this paper is to examine how the association of sake brewers ("syuzo-kumiai") was organized and expanded in modern Saitama. The trade association was an organization principally involved in the production and sale of sake. Research related to this field in Japan has focused on, first, how trade associations were established, although a cartel was banned by the Government at the beginning of modern era; second, why they increased in number; and, third, what were their main functions?
A new entry into a cartel had been prohibited by the Shogunate until the end of the Edo era. The liberalization of business brought about a sudden increase in the number of sake brewers. Small newly-established sake brewers often attempted to evade liquor tax and to ensure bargain sales which caused confusion in the market. Meanwhile, large and medium-sized sake brewers organized the association of sake brewers ("syuzo-kumiai") in 1875 to stabilize the market and restore order. However, the association of sake brewers did not perform well in Saitama Prefecture.
The association grew into a nationwide organization to oppose a proposed tax increase in the 1880s. Although the campaign was initially supported by the opposition parties "Jiyu-to" and "Kaisin-to", the former agreed to the necessity of a tax increase in 1896. As a result, the liquor tax was increased substantially in 1898, 1900, and 1902, respectively. The association of sake brewers ("syuzo-kumiai") was obliged to halt its campaign since it had lost its raison d'être.
The price rise due to the tax increase reduced the demand for sake and resulted in strong competition within the industry. The sake brewers thus had to improve quality to overcome competition. Some members of the association of sake brewers established a brewing research laboratory, and held annual meetings to evaluate the quality of sake. The sake brewers who assiduously improved quality differed from those who had objected to the tax increase. The aims and achievements of each member of the association of sake brewers thus became quite diverse.

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This research examines how electronics producers locate their factories in Japan as well as the production linkages of each factory. The company that the research uses as an example is Sony. In Japan, production sites for electronics products expanded and spread outside of the traditional industrial belts of Kei-Hin (Tokyo-Yokohama) and Han-Shin (Osaka-Kobe) from the beginning of the period of high economic growth. Electronics manufacturers tried to disperse factory locations but different locational approaches were undertaken by each company. Sony created an independent subsidiary of each factory, while Matsushita Denki, Hitachi, etc., had many of their factories under their direct control. In addition, Sony does not necessarily have many factories in the neighborhood of its head office, while Matsushita Denki, Hitachi, etc., have concentrated their operations near the head office.
Sony was founded in 1946 and moved its factory to Shinagawa ward, Tokyo, in 1947. Sony then built a factory in Miyagi prefecture to make magnetic tape recorder heads in 1954, a factory in Kanagawa prefecture to make transistors in 1960, and two factories in Aichi prefecture to make televisions and cathode-ray tubes in 1969 and 1970. From 1971, it created subsidiaries in various locations around the country, while making independent subsidiaries out of many of the factories built up to 1970. The factories in Shinagawa ward and Kanagawa Prefecture (the factory in Miyagi Prefecture as well in 1992) were brought under Sony's direct control as research and development centers. Sony's factories were thus made subsidiaries in locations spread nationwide.
The reasons why Sony dispersed its factories are, first, because it implemented a principle of production near consumption, and, second, because it wanted to avoid a total production stoppage if a natural disaster affected any single location. The main rationale for Sony creating subsidiaries of each factory is that it wanted to increase the competitiveness of its factories.
Sony subcontracts the production of parts and finished goods to subsidiaries and Sony itself undertakes the control of subsidiaries and the development of products. Each subsidiary individually sells parts and finished goods to the outside in addition to Sony. Parts and materials brought in by each subsidiary are procured from various parts of Japan as well as from Asian countries. The simple assembly of products is sometimes subcontracted to companies outside which are not necessarily located in the neighborhood. In fact, there are virtually no factories which have a production linkage with a subsidiary located in the same city or town. The regional scope of Sony's production linkage is broad. However, employment in Sony's subsidiaries is localized. The subsidiary hires people in the neighborhood for jobs such as design and engineering, in addition to production.
Traditionally, Sony's subsidiaries were deployed by building a factory in the founder's home town, or through an invitation from a city or town to set up a plant. In this context, each subsidiary, once established, makes much of its interactions with the community, such as supporting the community's economic development, accepting factory tours, participation in town festivals, making its grounds available for sports events, community cleaning activities, etc.
In conclusion, Sony has subsidiaries in broadly scattered locations, with each factory having limited production linkages within the community, but makes much of its human interactions with that community.

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This article reviews studies on the South Korean urban system since the 1970s when they began to dramatically increase associated with high economic growth in South Korea. Studies on the national urban system are divided into two main groups: those on nodes (cities) and those on linkages (interactions). Most of the studies reviewed here are written either in Korean or Japanese and those published in the West are excluded because, in many cases, they merely follow studies already published in South Korea.
The main themes of the studies on nodes are as follows: rank-size rule, classification of South Korean cities, growth-pole cities and regional development policy, and location of central managerial functions.
The rank-size rule and functional classification of South Korean cities are the main themes of the 1970s and 1980s. Studies on the rank-size rule point out that Seoul has been by far the largest city in Korea and has strengthened its primacy with the onset of high economic growth in South Korea. Studies on functional classification mainly make clear that there is a hierarchical structure in the national urban system of South Korea. These studies also demonstrate that there are marked differences in the urban system of South Korea between industrialized large cities and smaller provincial cities in decline.
Studies on growth-pole cities and regional development policy began to increase in the 1980s. The increased number of studies was stimulated by the change in the main goal of regional development policy by the national government from the pursuit of the benefits afforded by the concentration of industry in large cities towards the realization of economic equilibrium among regions. Most of these studies, however, point out that there is still a significant imbalance between areas with large industrial cities and those left behind from industrialization. Some studies even insist that development policy based on the centralized system itself should be changed.
Studies on the location of central managerial functions have significantly increased in the 1990s. This body of research, however, is still not as large in South Korea, compared with Japan. Another problem is that most of these studies simply confirm the primacy of Seoul, although a few studies point to the growth of regional central cities.
Since the 1980s, studies on linkages have increased, accompanied by the development of a quantitative approach and the availability of OD data between cities. The two main themes of these studies are patterns of linkages between cities and population movements. Like the studies on nodes, most of these studies identify the primacy of Seoul and the weak functions of local cities. Therefore, we can say that the increase in the number of studies on linkages has not necessarily contributed to variety in the study of the urban system of South Korea.
Some of these studies, however, indicate that regional central cities, such as Pusan, Taegu, Kwangju, and Taejon, have also grown up just behind Seoul. In addition, other studies also argue that it is no longer sufficient to analyze the urban system of Korea only via the presupposition that there is a large flow of population from provincial areas to large cities like Seoul. These analyses suggest that structural change is occurring in South Korea's urban system.
It can be said that this change has accelerated in the 1990s by the cessation of South Korea's high economic growth rate. This also means that the driving force of the urban system has changed from the manufacturing to the service sector.
There are also some studies of the local urban and daily urban system. It is especially worthy of note that most studies on the daily urban system adopt a quantitative approach and analyze the nodal structure of Seoul or the Seoul metropolitan area. These studies, however, are still relatively few in Korea.

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The term "jo-kou", which means female laborers working at spinning factories, has been used with discriminatory implications. The reality raised by this term leads us to imagine the group life of girls, the extremely hard work and the poverty, associated with a disdainful perception towards them. As a result, female laborers at spinning factories have also experienced severe social discrimination in neighborhood communities.
The author proposes that these discriminatory conditions have been observed more strongly in the encounter with the neighboring residents outside of the factory rather than in labormanagement relations inside the factory. The author also asserts that a perspective which focuses only on matters inside factories tends to mask workers' independence and potential, which are necessary to clarify in this study. Therefore, this paper stresses an important perspective: that is, to direct our attention to the encounters of spinning female laborers with the neighborhood community outside factories.
In the study area of Oda district at Muko county (since 1936, Amagasaki city) in Hyogo prefecture where the Kanzaki factory of Toyo Spinning Company was located, many reminiscences of spinning laborers are available, and the author adds personal interviews with neighboring residents. These narratives are helpful in clarifying the ways in which the residents viewed female laborers and how laborers shared their life world with the surrounding community. The impact of the neighborhood's discrimination of laborers and their reactions to it are also examined.
The results obtained here are as follows: (1) The company's management was largely conditioned by the laborers' emotions that arose as a result of encounters with the neighborhood community. (2) The laborers' independence, which tends to be unclear if we focus on labor-management relations inside the factory, can be recognized through an analysis of relations between female laborers and the neighborhood community.

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The time-space measure of accessibility based on the time-space path (TSP) and the potential path area (PPA) in time-geography is a powerful framework for the analysis of human behavior and accessibility patterns at the micro-scale. However, the reality of the TSP and the PPA on continuous space is low, although their geometric manipulation is easy. One possible means of raising the reality of the TSP and the PPA is to define the space to be analyzed as a street network which takes actual activity locations and the travel environment into account. A technical constraint related to the operation of the TSP and the PPA on a street network was difficult resulting from the large volume of spatial data, although the utilization of geographical information systems (GIS) has recently solved this constraint.
This article has two purposes: (1) to describe a method for operating the TSP and the PPA on a street network using GIS, which is indispensable for accessibility measurement using time-space measures, and (2) to compare the results of measuring time-space accessibility on continuous space and a street network in order to determine the validity of the latter.
The operation of the TSP and the PPA is performed using the following procedures: (1) construct a street network that consists of links and nodes with temporal impedance on a GIS environment; (2) operate the TSP by using the shortest path search function, which is a basic network analytical method of GIS; (3) operate the PPA by using the allocation method, which searches links and/or nodes located at a specific distance from the cardinal node(s).
The comparison of the PPA on continuous space and on a street network reveals that the smallest range of the PPA on the latter is half that of the former and its dispersion is wider. Moreover, the shape of the PPA on a street network is not close to a circle in terms of the form ratio. The breadth and shape of the PPA on the network depend on the existence of barriers for rectilinear travel such as a broad road, railway, stair and open space that do not permit the passage of the general public, as well as the shape of city blocks. The PPA on continuous space, however, cannot take into account these factors. The above-mentioned results demonstrate the higher reality of the PPA on a street network in a quantitative sense.

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Recent geographical studies of national boundaries/territories in English-speaking countries ave devoted considerable attention to the instability of nation-states mainly due to an upsurge in ethnic nationalism. While territorial issues have generally been regarded as a conflict between the nation-state and ethnic nationalism, other territorial issues between nation-states have attracted relatively little attention. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the movement for restoring the Northern Territories, which constitutes a longstanding problem between Japan and Russia, as an example of these issues, and to examine its implications for geography.
The issue of the Northern Territories, which are located east of Hokkaido and belong to Japan, emerged in 1945 when troops of the former USSR occupied them. The movement for the restoration of the Territories to Japan started immediately due to extreme pressure from former islanders and local people whose economic base lay mainly in long shore fisheries. A few years later, organizations for the movement were formed. Their main purpose was to popularize the recognition that the restoration problem was a national task for all Japanese and to plan a process of diplomatic negotiations with present-day Russia. This implies that the restoration movement required 'nationalism' from the Japanese side.
From interviews with those in charge of this movement, however, the following findings were obtained. Although the purpose of the movement is to realize restoration by popularizing the territorial issue among all Japanese citizens, the people concerned with the movement cannot directly be engaged in diplomatic negotiations. A promising indication of a settlement has not yet been found. In recent years, the perpetuation of the movement itself has become its prime purpose.
Noticeable in this context is a recent division among people concerned with the movement. On the one hand, former islanders and their descendants know that the problem of the Northern Territories is a national problem, particularly the former islanders, for whom the Territories are home and who have shown great support for the movement. On the other hand, people who were not born or who had not grown up there and are thus only under an obligation to be involved in the movement, have not supported it so strongly. Nowadays, it is rather unusual for former islanders and their descendants to expect to migrate to the Territories even after possible restoration, but they generally think that the movement as a national task should continue. Partly due to the development of local exchange with Russians in the Territories, descendants of the younger generation are not necessarily aware that their restoration is a national issue.
As a result, the movement framework based on such awareness seems to have been in process of becoming a mere shell, and solidarity within the organizations concerned has weakened. In the meantime, the intention of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs concerning this territorial problem is also related to current international relations, and, as a result, the feelings of former islanders are not fully taken into account. Accordingly, the restoration movement is limited in the sense that the Japanese state does not unit with Japanese citizens.

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