Social Stratification and Groups/Organizations in the Modern City

1994 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 04401006
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: 社会学(含社会福祉関係)
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: NITAGAI Kamon The University of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters, Professo, 文学部, 教授 (40020490)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): YAZAWA Sumiko Tokyo Women's College, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Science, Professor, 文理学部, 教授 (00106296)
• Project Period (FY): 1992 – 1994
• Keywords: Social Stratification / Land Tenure / Public Society / Social Groups / Organizations / Theory of Life / Municipality / Centralization / Tokyo

Research Abstract

Under the capitalism, the proper way to supply the land tenure of the city is to create more land above the limited land by the idea of cubic measure. Newly created land is commercialized in this way : the ownership of land created by the cubic measure can be transfered as real estate, so the land forms "commercialized space." Furthermore, as it can be seen as the land for construction at discretion, the "commercialized space" would become the infrastructure for the city development industry. Considering "re-ajusting" of social category concerning the "modern land tenure" and the "modern public society, " basically it is the "modern city development/redevelopment" as the public policy that can commercialize the limited land or the land tenure of the city which has scarcity value. Only based on the "modern city development" as the public policy and the criterion for the "public society" which is involved in it, the "private land tenure" is released from the plane form and is given the cubic form. And the land created by the cubic measure acquires the position of "commodity" through the legal transfer of the ownership. It means that the land is put into "theory of market" in the "economic system where currency serves as a medium." (J.Habermas) "Land tenure, " or the "land tenure as a means of living" (Yozo Watanabe) is eroded by "colonization of life space by the economic system" through the "public policy" like the city development/redevelopment by the state or the local bureaucracy. Thus, for the citizens, possessing land means they have to defend by themselves the paradigm of "private land tenure" from the aspect of living, which goes against the idea of "commercialization of land, " or design for the transfer of paradigm by critically re-constructing new "private land tenure" from the aspect of "theory of life."