THE CONCEPT DIAGRAM OF CITY PATTERNS

Abstract

Where cities are studied on the basis of the regional, and spatial concept, there should be notified, on the way of city evolution, an undeniable existence of the two groups, that is, the Central City group and the Non-central City group. In this article, the researcher classifies the cities into two different city groups of Central Cities and Non-central Cities, and ponders about the regional part which the two City groups are playing, and intends to clarify the significance of the spatial order which governs the formation of cities. By utilizing the population census, the commerce census, and the establishment census during the two periods, 1955-1960, the researcher has proved in the abstract space that Central Cities and Non-central Cities belong to their respective categories that are quite different from each other on the points of function, structure, and the history of development, and has made the concept diagram of the city patterns. The cities used in this research are 122 cities whose population of Densely Inhabited Districts amounted to more than 50, 000 in the Census of the year 1960. The researcher, for the purpose of analyzing the cities, has applied the following two methods: (1) the growth and spatial potentiality model, and (2) the contact (groups of human beings) and accessibility model. The application of these methods has enabled the researcher to classify the cities into the two groups, one of which is the group of Central Cities supported by the basic functions that show the notable relations between growth and potentiality and between contact and accessibility, and the other of which is the group of Non-central Cities having no such relation at all, such as industrial cities, suburban cities, sightseeing cities and declining cities. If Central Cities were to be a ‘function’ between the social and economical development of our country and the growth of City Regions, suburban cities could be said to be a ‘function’ of the growth of Metropolises, and industrial cities and sightseeing cities to be a ‘function’ between the development of our national land spatial usability. If cities are to be regarded as ‘nodal regions’, Non-central Cities need to be handled with great care, because the Non-central Cities, which have been built up in relation to the whole of the national land and in subordination to Metropolises, such as industrial cities, sightseeing cities, old naval port cities, and suburban cities, are very weak in centrality and have extremely small and narrow city regions. Indeed, such cities do exist in administration, but when viewed from the point of regional functions, the worth of existence of these cities is very low. Therefore, in order to distinguish these Non-central Cities from Central Cities, would it not be more effective to handle such Non-central Cities as ‘Industrial Areas’, ‘Sight-seeing Areas’, and ‘Suburban Areas’?