Central Places within a Metropolis

Abstract

In recent years, metropolises in this country, such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, are strenthening sociall and economic relationship with other districts, and are rapidly making their own urban development, intensifying their predominancy in respective degrees.The writer, taking an example of Tokyo, intends to explain the growth of a metropolis through the analysis of the distribution patterns, the functions and the structure of civic centers, sub-centers, and large and small central places in the metropolis.According to the writer's analysis of the “ward” areas of the Metropolis, there are 129 central places differing in structures and functions. These groups of central places are arranged in order on the foundation of the following three fundamental structures: (1) the regional structure surrounding the civic center, (2) the hexagonal structure composed of central places (=smaller than sub-centers), and (3) the radial structure developed with a sub-center as a focus.Following four itmes will be counted as important factors necessary for the development of a metropolis and for the formation of many groups of central places. Those are; (1) contact activities in central places, (2) expansion and development of the civic center, (3) accesibility to the civic center, and (4) distribution of the nighttime population. Following three factors may be added to these as special factors which give regional difference to the general type of central places, such are; (5) the peculiarities of land and inhabitants, (6) the type of communities, and (7) regional structure of the neighboring districts.