REGIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY REGION PATTERN IN SHIMANE PREFECTURE AND ITS PROBLEMS IN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

This paper is a report on the regional structure of city region pattern in Shimane Prefecture, western Honshu. Two indicators have been employed in order to explain the relationships between cities and their surroundings. The indicators are a) main places to purchase shopping goods for the dwellers and b) commuting areas of the dwellers.In Shimane Prefecture, most city regions are small in area. Core cities in some city regions are distributed on the coast of Japan Sea, others scattered inland. Each core city is a service or business center in a rural-urban community. In general, the areal form of a city region is longitudinal extending from north to south. Communication between the city regions is restricted within narrow limits because of imperfect transportation facilities. Functional competition between core cities is only observed in the Izumo area in eastern Shimane. In mountainous areas, towns and villages are comparatively isolated from the main city regions of Shimane, rather they are more or less functionally linked with those of other prefectures such as Hiroshima and Yamaguchi. In the river valley of the Go, no significant core cities are to be found and so the local towns perform central functions instead. In Shimane Prefecture, industrialization recently developing has promoted suburbanization, though very small in scale. Examples are Matsue, Yasugi and Gotsu. Matsue, prefectural capital of Shimane, has been experiencing suburbanization. Market-gardening district in the Tsuda and Nogi areas of its southern suburbs has recently changed to residential sections. Because of the prevalence of narrow and hook-shaped roads in the heart of the city and also of the existence of only two large bridges connecting northern and southern parts of Matsue, intra-city traffic is very congested. In this city, industrialization is not rapid and no large industrial plants employing more than 300 persons are to be seen. Nevertheless, Matsue's central function is by far the largest in this prefecture and its sphere of retail trade and commuting covers an area of 100-minutes distance along the San'in railroad. For the pedlars still found in a large number, Matsue functions as the primary center for their selling and buying. In this paper, some other cities and towns such as Izumo, and Gotsu are also geographically dealt with in a similar fashion. Despite the efforts made to industrialize Shimane Prefecture further, still agriculture dominates among all industries, although it cannot support more people. Out-flow of people from rural parts has been a general tendency of late. Even the tertiary industry is not very prosperous, and many goods must be shipped in from other districts such as San'yo even today. Development through either secondary or tertiary industry would not be quite successful here. And so much emphasis has to be put on agricultural production, so that the people of Shimane could become better off without much development in secondary and tertiary industries. Such a relatively under-developed situation of Shimane Prefecture must be taken into consideration when we deal with the regional development.