LINKAGES BETWEEN THE BUILT-UP AREAS OF TAKAYAMA CITY AND ITS HINTERLAND—ANALYSIS OF THE DAILY BEHAVIORS OF THE HINTERLAND INHABITANTS—

Abstract

Most of the studies of the linkages between a city and its hinterland have hitherto been none other than the studies of the regional structure of the surrounding areas influenced by the functions of the city. But the auther thought that the economic and social linkages between a given city and its hinterland should naturally be reflected in the daily behaviors of the hinterland inhabitants going to the city; therefore, such linkages can be made clear by observing those behaviors. In this article, the author tries to clarify the linkages between the built-up areas of Takayama City and its hinterland in Hida region, Gifu Prefecture by analyzing those behaviors directed to the city in the daily life of the hinterland inhabitants. The survey was conducted in the following method; first, the author distributed questionnaires among the families of the first year pupils through junior high schools in Takayama City and surrounding five towns and seven villages; second, the author, considering the elementary school zones as minimum communities, divided the area into 57 sub-areas. Analyzing the informations collected from the questionnaires, the author could observe the following result: 1) When the inhabitants of the surrounding areas go to Takayama City, three kinds of behaviors are usually observed in this one action of going to the city; and the originally intended major behaviors such as attendings offices or schools are mostly accompanied by the secondary behaviors which the inhabitants already intend to do before they leave their home and the third entirely casual behaviors unintended beforehand. 2) Shopping is the most frequently observed behavior of this second and third kinds of behaviors. 3) The distribution of dwelling-places of the inhabitants who do shopping as the above-mentioned secondary behavior and the frequency of this kind of shopping in the city are related to the number of stores in each district. When there are few stores in a given district, the frequency of shopping as the secondary behavior corresponds to the distance from the district to the built-up areas of Takayama City or to the other concentrated districts of stores. The distribution of the dwelling-places of the inhabitants doing shopping as the third casual behaviors and its frequency have no relation to the number of stores in each district nor to the distance to the other concentrated districts of store; rather they are related to the traffic means from each district. 4) Attending offices, attending schools, attending hospitals and shopping are the four major behaviors through which the hinterland inhabitants are connected with the built-up areas of Takayama City. And the distribution and occurrence rate of the secondary behaviors and the third casual behaviors accompanying each of these four major behaviors are different according to what the major intended behavior is.