Location of newly built dwellings and changing urban structure in the outer suburban city of Osaka metropolitan area: Case study of Sakurai city, Nara Prefecture

Abstract

This paper examines the locations of newly built dwellings and related land use changes from the late 1980s in Sakurai City, Nara Prefecture and investigates the factors related to such changes. This city is located in the outer suburbs of the Osaka metropolitan area. In contrast to the period from the late 1980s through the early 1990s that showed an increase in the population and high land prices, Sakurai City, which currently faces depopulation and land price reduction, has undergone decentralization of newly built dwellings and conversions of land use into vacant or parking lots in its central areas, since the late 1990s. As a result, the city has developed low-density urban structures. We identified the following main factors that affect these changes. First, the composition of the housing supply in the outer suburbs has been dominated by detached housing due to falling metropolitan land prices. Second, suburban living activities are based on automobile ownership rather than public transportation (trains) in relation to increasing commuters among suburban municipalities. Third, a spatial mismatch exists between land supply and demand. Fourth, the aging of land owners and harsh economic environments increased land sales and apartment construction for rental use in the city’s outskirts. Fifth, many land owners in the city’s central areas launched parking businesses as a way of land utilization, based on low-risk investment. The above findings suggest that changing urban structures in outer suburban cities have been influenced not only by land use patterns in them but also by such metropolitan restructuring as multi-nucleation and the end of suburbanization.