Tendency of Small Scale of Municipal Primary Schools and the Change of Spatial Structure of Local Communities in the Metropolitan Cities in Japan.

1996 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 07680172
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Human geography
• Research Institution: Hiroshima Women's University
• Principal Investigator: SAKAGAWA Shigeru Hiroshima Women's University, Faculty of Intercultural communication, Associate Professor, 国際文化学部, 助教授 (40162284)
• Project Period (FY): 1995 – 1996
• Keywords: Japan / metropolitan cities / municipal primary schools / tendency of small scale / functional combined facilities / local communities / spatial structure

Research Abstract

The tendency of small scale of municipal primary schools was found in the central and sub-central areas of 11 metropolitan cities in Japan. The tendency was remarkable in Kyoto, Osaka Kobe and Kita-Kyushu. Although there should have been many surplus classrooms in all cities, some wards in Tokyo had no surplus classrooms. There were wide variety of styles of rebuilding of surplus classrooms in cities, In many cases, the surplus classrooms were rebuilt to special classrooms, lunch rooms, management rooms and so on for school use. In some other cases, those were rebuilt to functional combined facilities for community use. Especially when the small schools were combined in some central wards of Tokyo, the new buildings were built as the latter. Another typical case of the latter was the small rebuilding to community houses which were rebuilt from a part of school buildings in Yokohama.
From the investigation of the usage of school facilities for community use, the schools were not fully used as the functional combined facilities, but used sufficiently on the project of opening school facilities. It is considered that the functional combined facilities for community use were built recently and not known for many people in local communities. However, as was the case of Yokohama, where the rebuilding of schools was begun earlier than in other cities and the community houses were densely located, it was found that the municipal primary schools were recognized as one of the lifelong learning facilities for many people and there were functional interrelationship between schools and other facilities.