3/12/2007

In a movement similar to the early suburbanization of the United States after World War II, a lot of Japanese people—many of whom have kept their jobs in the big city (i.e. Utsunomiya and Tokyo)—have been increasingly opting to move out to places as far as Nishinasuno and Otawara (http://www.answers.com/topic/otawara-tochigi) in search of cheaper living costs, wider spaces, and an escape from the craziness of the city. It sheds a lot of light on the fact that for being such rural areas, there has actually been a lot of expansion, especially in recent years. Keio University did a study about 11 years ago on the suburbanization of Tokyo that captures quite well an emerging trend that again is strikingly similar to what has been going on in the U.S. I apologize to the English-speaking readers that the entire link is in Japanese, but the emphasis is really on the demographic maps that cover population trends in Tokyo over the past 80 years through 1985 (The subject of the study is “The Suburbanization of Tokyo”, or “Tokyo no Kougaika”). The blue colors indicate areas of low population density, red colors indicate areas of high density (the darker the blue, the less people there are, the redder the color, the more concentrated people are). The interesting thing is that as time progresses, it becomes very noticeable that not only are people spreading outward, but so are the population densities. What ultimately is happening is that central Tokyo—residentially speaking—is actually depleting while the outer suburbs are becoming the new areas that are filling up with people. If you want a firsthand sense of how many people that is, just wait until the last train at any major station in Tokyo on the weekend and watch how many people are rushing to catch the last ride back out to the suburbs (i.e. the Den-En-Toshi Line from Shibuya).