Quarterly Journal of Geography
Online ISSN : 1884-1252
Print ISSN : 0916-7889
ISSN-L : 0916-7889
Volume 54, Issue 4
Displaying 1-7 of 7 articles from this issue
  • A Case Study on Eleven Cities Founded as Castle Town between 1945 and the 1990s
    Minoru YOKOO
    2002 Volume 54 Issue 4 Pages 201-219
    Published: December 26, 2002
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    It is proposed, in this paper, to examine the changes of urban areas of eleven cities founded as castle town of feudal lords in Tohoku District after the Second World War and indicate the extent to which the present urban structure has been influenced by its origin. The following cities, which are put in order according to their population size in 1995 (in parentheses), have been selected; Sendai (971, 000), Akita (312, 000), Morioka (286, 000), Fukushima (286, 000), Yamagata (254, 000), Hachinohe (243, 000), Hirosaki (178, 000), Aizu-Wakamatsu (120, 000), Tsuruoka (101, 000), Yonezawa (96, 000), and Yokote (41, 000). The changes of land use pattern of each city are reconstructed based on various maps and writings.
    A general trend of the present urban structure coupled with the initial castle town can be exemplified through a comparative study of the eleven cities. The cities show three distinct rings of development: the central core, the intermediate zone and the outer zone.
    1. The central core. It is located in some parts of the castle town. Chief government offices usually stand on the former high-class samurai's residence close to the castle. The commercial center is localized in the former privileged and wealthy merchants quarter and expands beyond it.
    2. The intermediate zone. This is the densely built-up zone surrounding the central core and divided into two principal areas based upon their function. One is the area characterized by mixture of different uses: houses, shops, workshops and the like. It dose not bear clear traces of initial land use pattern of the castle town. The other is the area predominantly devoted to a residential use. It follows former residential quarters of the middle and low-class samurai. This residential area gradually diminishes its size by encroachment of different business uses.
    3. The outer zone. It is a new zone extended beyond the castle town and mainly consisted of residential areas with a relatively low density of houses. In most cities it began to expand from as recently as 1960, about a century behind the experience in Western cities. This is due to the fact that the old samurai housing areas put together with commodious premises have been transformed into residence, schools and other public facilities which have gradually increased since the end of the nineteenth century, to play a major role in restricting urban expansion.
    During the Edo period the castle towns reported here were constructed and maintained under a planning for the display of feudal power and spatial relation among residents were arranged to maintain an appropriate hierarchical social structure. The castle acted as the nucleus for urban development, and high-class samurai, middle-class samurai, lower-class samurai areas and temple zones were arranged around the castle. Usually deep moats protected both the castle and high-class samurai area from encroachment of enemies. Merchants and craftsmen areas were allocated along main roads outside a fortified place.
    Accompanied with the collapse of the feudal system in 1868, the castles lost their significance without exception and the commercial districts inhabited by privileged and wealthy merchants turned into the nuclei of new urban development. Other different parts of the original castle towns, that is, samurai areas, unprivileged merchants and craftsmen areas, and temple zones still retain the limited sections, but they no longer form an essential element in the structure of present cities.
    According to the generalized models relevant to Western cities presented by E. W. Burgess and R. E. Dickinson, the central core of the present city lies on the site of its original nucleus, and the city tends to expand radially from it so as to form a series of concentric zones.
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  • Akira CHIBA
    2002 Volume 54 Issue 4 Pages 220-235
    Published: December 26, 2002
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this research study is to clarify the frequency of occurrence and spatial distribution of temperatures (a) below 0°C (<-0.1°C), (b) between 0°C and 3°C (0°C>and<2.9°C), and (c) over 3°C (>3.0°C) in the Hokkaido and Tohoku districts of northeastern Japan. During the winter, the Tohoku district has an isothermal line of 0°C. Hence, the author clarifies where the border between freezing and melting occurs within this district. At the same time, it is difficult to judge whether the precipitation between 0°C and 3°C is snowfall or rainfall.
    AMeDAS (Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition Systems) were used to acquire the data. These automated observatories are installed at 330 points in the Hokkaido and Tohoku districts.
    The period analyzed was 22 winters between 1979 and 2000. A winter season is defined as between December 1 of the previous year and March 31. During these four months, hourly observations were completed culminating in 2, 904 observations at each point. During leap years, there were 2, 928 observations. A frequency of 100% is defined as 2, 904 hours. The results are as follows.
    (1) In the average year, the frequency of temperatures below 0°C was more than 70% in Hokkaido and 10 to 50% in the Tohoku district.
    (2) The frequency of temperatures between 0°C and 3°C, varies from 0-9% in Hokkaido to 30-49% in the southwestern part of Tohoku in the average year. No stations recorded more than 50%.
    (3) In the areas where temperatures occurred between 0°C and 3°C, some year-to-year changes were observed. During the 80's and 90's, 30 to 40% of this area shifted about 340km northward. However, there was no change in the location of the below 0°C temperatures.
    (4) After calculating the frequency of temperatures over 3°C, each station was classified according to these 3 temperature ranges using a tri-linear diagram. This resulted in 10 weather-pattern regions for this area. In the Tohoku district, the spatial distribution is more complex than in Hokkaido.
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  • Hirohisa YAMADA
    2002 Volume 54 Issue 4 Pages 236-246
    Published: December 26, 2002
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The land price fluctuation is a time series of phenomenon. So, it needs to understand the mechanism of the land price fluctuation from a long-term point of view. In this paper, the influences of the land price increase in the late 1970s on the land price fluctuation in the next period were examined. The findings of the analysis are summarized as follows.
    The land price increase in the late 1970s occurred by the interest rate cut in the economic stagnation after the first oil crisis and the peculiarity of the land market. Most of the residents in metropolitan areas had not been able to buy land any more when the land price increase exceeded their income growth. Additionally, the delay of the estates development in the suburbs due to the economic slump caused the amount of land supply to decrease.
    As a result, the residential land market inside metropolitan areas stagnated in the first half of 1980s. The people who had given up purchase of land were oriented toward living in condominiums in the surrounding areas of inner city. The condominium development increased the land demand, and caused the redevelopment and the mixture of land using. These phenomena made speculative transactions in land and spatial spreading of the land price fluctuations accelerated.
    Sharp rise in commercial land prices of the late 1980s was a spreading phenomenon, which had its origin in brushfire rise in the inner city of Tokyo. This increase of land price has a close relationship with the boom of condominium development by the reduction of residential land market in the first half of the 1980s. The rise in the late 1970s and the rise in the late 1980s are regarded as a series of phenomena though the two progressed by the respectively different mechanism.
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  • Experimentation in Tohoku Gakuin University
    Toyohiko MIYAGI, Shoichiro UCHIYAMA
    2002 Volume 54 Issue 4 Pages 247-250
    Published: December 26, 2002
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • A Possibility of NIE
    Motoo KUSHIBIKI
    2002 Volume 54 Issue 4 Pages 251-254
    Published: December 26, 2002
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • 2002 Volume 54 Issue 4 Pages 255-256
    Published: December 26, 2002
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (255K)
  • 2002 Volume 54 Issue 4 Pages 257-259
    Published: December 26, 2002
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (371K)
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