2001 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Comparative Study of Four Regional Cities in Japan, with Special Reference to the Recent Trends in Their Generality as Basing Points
| Project/Area Number |
12680069
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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 | TOHOKU UNIVERSITY |
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Principal Investigator |
HINO Masateru TOHOKU UNIVERSITY, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SCIENCE, PROFESSOR, 理学研究科, 教授 (30156608)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2000 – 2001
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| Keywords | Regional City / Branch Office / Information Service Industry / Sapporo / Sendai / Hiroshima / Fukuoka |
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| Research Abstract |
The four regional cities, Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, have been recognized as the similar cities in terms of centrality and urban growth. That is, they are the primate centers in their respective regions and in the same level of the agglomerations of central functions. However, it was pointed out that the differentiation in centrality among them had emerged since the late of the 1980s. This research verified the above point. Main findings are summarized as follows :
1) The growth rate of Hiroshima in population and employment has been continuously lowest among the four cities since the late of the 1980s. The four regional cities grew with the concentrated agglomeration of the branch offices of large firms based in Tokyo and Osaka. So, they have been equally called as the cities with branch office economies. However, the large disparity in the number of branch offices had been formed among Fukuoka and Hiroshima in the early of 1980s. After that, the difference has been increa
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sed. Furthermore, in the way of the agglomeration of information service industry evaluated as a new growth industry, Hiroshima is smallest among the four cities.
2) Performances of Fukuoka and Sendai in the increase of employment have been relatively excellent. However, the agglomeration of local firms in Sendai is relatively small. Then, the growth of Sendai remains to depend on the agglomeration of establishments of firms based in Tokyo and other cities. On the other hand, Fukuoka has a relatively large number of local firms with vigor. In addition, a lot of firms based in Kyushu Region located their branch offices in Fukuoka, which offset the decrease of branch offices of Tokyo's firms.
3) Although Sapporo is larger than Fukuoka in population of administration area, the number of branch offices of large firms in Sapporo is smaller. Hokkaido Region, the hinterland of Sapporo, is quite smaller than Kyushu Region in the amount of demand for many industries. This is the main reason why Sapporo is inferior to Fukuoka in the agglomeration of branch offices. However, there are many local smaller firms with vigor. A large part of increase of employment in Sapporo depends on the growth of local firms. Less
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