The study of "company towns"(kigyo-jokamachi) is an important issue for Japanese urban researchers. The "company town" refers to a city or town where a single major company holds a dominant position in the socio-economic and political spheres of the municipality. Recently, many of these cities have suffered from the effect of corporate restructuring and globalization, and most of the studies have addressed this contemporary trend and related reorganization. But there has been little research examining the historical formation of the "company town" from the viewpoint of the reproduction of labor power. This paper aims to explore the historical formation and characteristics of a Japanese company town, focusing on Niihama City, Ehime Prefecture, and to examine its urban transformation in relation to the development of Sumitomo Corporation. Niihama is often called the company town of Sumitomo Corporation. Between the 1920s and 1940s, Sumitomo shifted production from copper to chemicals, and moved operations from Mt. Besshi to Niihama. Corresponding to this business transition, the socio-economic structure of Niihama-Cho (later Niihama City) changed, and heavy industry became the main industry in the region. At the same time, the population of Niihama-Cho increased rapidly, and the town became urbanized, and in 1937 the City of Niihama was formally established. There is a great deal of literature about the urban history of Niihama. The majority explains the location of production facilities and the concentration of Sumitomo's real estate property, while excluding analysis of the concentration of laborers and the reproduction of labor power. This paper focuses on these aspects, from the perspective of David Harvey's "built environment," and analyzes the reproduction of labor power supported by "the built environment for consumption." It also makes clear the role that the reproduction of laborers played in determining the urban form of Niihama.

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What kind of social security is appropriate in a reflexive modernity? To answer this question, this paper examines the structure of the changes from a productivist model of welfare to an ecological model, based on the notion of "basic income." Basic income has been thus far discussed from many perspectives, including liberalism, egalitarianism, feminism, communitarianism, ecology, and so on. This article aims to clarify the significance of basic income from the viewpoint of communitarianism and ecology. Left-libertarians define basic income as income paid unconditionally by the government to every member of society, based on universal citizenship. In this case, "unconditional" means that neither a means-test nor a work-test is needed as a prerequisite when benefits are paid. Many communitarians and ecologists criticize this point from the point of view that many free-riders will appear if people don't need to assume any responsibilities of work. But an important point to remember is that people don't need to be engaged in paid-employment, but may make any social contribution, such as household work, voluntary care-work, community exchange, etc. Therefore, A. B. Atkinson called such income "participation income" instead of basic income, arguing that people can receive benefits just on the condition that they participate in any work which society needs. "Work" is a greater concept than employment. What "participation income" aims to do is to promote such multi-faceted activities. In particular, ecologists would pursue a fully-engaged society through implementing participation income, as a part of building a sustainable society. Basic income plays an important part in the assisted self-help approach, for supporting grass-roots civic activities.

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