Change in locality and the administrative incorporation of Tanashi and Hoya Cities, Tokyo

Abstract

In recent years, the government has fostered administrative incorporations along with neoliberalism in Japan. But there are few Japanese case studies of administrative incorporations in the field of political science and human geography. However, many local politico-geographical studies have been done especially in the UK since the 1980s. They are called locality studies, which study the relation between the global economy and places. Hence the purpose of this study is to examine the political and socioeconomic factors of the administrative incorporation of Tanashi and Hoya Cities, which merged in 2001, from the viewpoint of locality studies. Tanashi and Hoya Cities were suburban cities in the Tokyo metropolitan area because of the heavy increases in the population from 1950 to 1975. Tanashi City was paid significant local taxes by three major factories, Citizen Watch Co., Ltd., Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd., and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, Co., Ltd.; Hoya City only had small factories and thus was poor in the public finances. Tanashi City redeveloped the Tanashi station area during the 1980s. However, the redevelopment forced Tanashi City to assume the burden of public financing because of the depression in the 1990s. Moreover, the business of the three major factories in Tanashi was at a low ebb in the 1990s because of globalization. One factory (Citizen Watch Co., Ltd.) is shifting domestic production abroad. The others slumped in the field of the shipbuilding. The tax income from the factories in Tanashi City has decreased so that the difference in public finances between Tanashi and Hoya Cities lessened. Hence the two cities were mergered to improve the base of public finance.