The Japanese City

by Karan, Pradyumna P.; Stapleton, Kristin

• ISBN13: 9780813120355
• ISBN10: 0813120357
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-12-18
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky

Summary

" Japan is one of the most crowded countries on earth, with three-fourths of its population now living in cities. Tokyo is easily the most populous city on the planet. And yet, though closely packed, its citizens dwell together in relative peace. In America, inner-city violence -- often attributed in part to overcrowding -- is frequently emphasized as one of the great social problems of the day. What might we learn from Japan's situation that could be applied to our own as we approach the twenty-first century? In this collection an interdisciplinary group of international scholars seek to understand and explain the process and characteristics shaping the modern Japanese city. With frequent comparisons to the American city, they consider such topics as urban landscapes, the quality of life in the suburbs, spatial mixing of social classes in the city, land use planning and control, environmental pollution, and images of the city in Japanese literature. The only book on the subject, The Japanese City surveys the important literature and highlights the current issues in urban studies. The numerous photographs, maps, tables, and graphs, combined with the high quality of the contributions, offer a comprehensive look at the contemporary Japanese city. Contributors: William Burton, David L. Callies, Roman Cybriwsky, Kuniko Fujita, Theodore J. Gilman, Richard Child Hill, P.P. Karan, Robert Kidder, Cotton Mather, and Kohei Okamoto.

Table of Contents

List of Figures, Tables, and Photographs	vi	(3)
Preface	ix
1 Introduction	1	(11)
P. P. Karan
2 The City in Japan	12	(28)
P. P. Karan
3 Urban Landscapes of Japan	40	(16)
Cotton Mather
4 From Castle Town to Manhattan Town with Suburbs: A Geographical Account of Tokyo's Changing Landmarks and Symbolic Landscapes	56	(23)
Roman Cybriwsky
5 Suburbanization of Tokyo and the Daily Lives of Suburban People	79	(27)
Kohei Okamoto
6 Together and Equal: Place Stratification in Osaka	106	(28)
Kuniko Fujita
Richard Child Hill
7 Urban Land Use and Control in the Japanese City: A Case Study of Hiroshima, Osaka, and Kyoto	134	(22)
David Callies
8 Disasters Chronic and Acute: Issues in the Study of Environmental Pollution in Urban Japan	156	(20)
Robert Kidder
9 Urban Restructuring in Omuta, Japan, and Flint, Michigan: A Comparison	176	(45)
Theodore J. Gilman
10 The Image of Tokyo in Soseki's Fiction	221	(21)
William Burton
List of Contributors	242	(3)
Index	245