Has Central Tokyo Experienced Uneven Development? An Examination of Tokyo’s 23 Ku Relative to America’s Largest Urban Centers

Abstract

:Does uneven development exist within central Tokyo? This study assesses the degree of place stratification by income, population, and private employment among the 23 Ku of Tokyo over the past 30 years. It then compares these levels among the Ku for the 1990s relative to those for New York’s five boroughs and among census-defined places within the central counties of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit. It finds that income, population, and private employment growth were more unevenly distributed among the Ku during the 1990s than they were in 1970s and 1980s; this was especially true for population change and income. Additionally, it finds that although the distributions of income and private employment growth among the Ku were noticeably lower than within America’s largest urban core counties, population change actually occurred more unevenly among the Ku than in these areas during the 1990s. Therefore, it concludes that the 23 Ku did experience a notable degree of uneven residential development during the 1990s. The study then argues that the development strategies of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG), which have become increasingly entrepreneurial since the mid-1980s, were the lead catalysts fostering this situation. Its approach, however, was not an attempt to circumvent the central state. In fact, its activities remain tightly nested within the Japanese Capitalist Developmental State. The TMG’s recent policymaking represents a Japanized version or offshoot of Harvey and Jessop’s entrepreneurial city, which is sanctioned, guided, encouraged, and sometimes even led by the Japanese Government’s desire to improve Tokyo’s international competitiveness.