2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Municipal Mergers and Open Horizontal Networking Within Enlarged Cities ---A Perspective on Urban Restructuring for the 21st Century---
| Project/Area Number |
12680079
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Human geography
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| Research Institution | TAKASAKI CITY UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS |
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Principal Investigator |
TODOKORO Takashi Dept. of Regional Policy, Professor, 地域政策学部, 教授 (80066745)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2000 – 2002
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| Keywords | 'daitoshika' / 'buntoshika' / urban structure for the 21st century / horizontal networks / compact cities / empowered municipalities / urban development on human scale / municipal mergers in Heisei era |
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| Research Abstract |
This study proposes a paradigm change in a broader perspective on urban restructuring for the 21st century. Mergers of municipalities in larger scale than ever before and closer horizontal networking of local cores are the keys.
During the last century many cities, American cities being the first on the list, pursued desires to satisfy people's appetite and to enjoy material affluence. Urban developments tended to be almost alike everywhere : national and local governments took the initiative in supplying stereotypical social infrastructures attaching too much emphasis on hardware.
In the 21st century such stereotypical urban developments are no longer valid for effectively restructuring urban activities. In the age of information-oriented globalization, it is necessary for both public and private sectors to see urban redevelopment and revitalization in a completely new perspective.
To be recognized internationally, cities, towns and villages are likely to be driven to mergers by necessit
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y of accelerating their economic efficiency, strengthening their financial bases as well as improving their managerial and negotiative abilities by developing rich human resources. Author coin the term 'daitoshika' or metropolitanization to signify that tendency of municipal mergers for forming an enlarged city.
Within such an enlarged city, a vertical, hierarchical ranking of local cores with one of them on its top does not work well any longer. As is often the case with enlarged cities, there are not one but several local cores in the city. Each of those inner cores keeps its unique function, rather independent and autonomous, not to be ranked hierarchically to the rest. Author name that phenomenon 'buntoshika' or emergence and co-existence of rather autonomous local cores within an enlarged city.
In order to survive and prosper in information-oriented global community, it is necessary for an enlarged city not only to free itself from the idea of hierarchical urban development and revitalization but also to restructure relationship among its local cores by making open, horizontal networks among them as well as by outward networking.
Decentralization of power from a national government to local municipalities can only be materialized by making larger cities by mergers and horizontally and closely networking their local cores. Less
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