THE DRIFT OF POPULATION OF TOYONAKA CITY

Abstract

Toyonaka City is situated in 10km. Jo-north of Osaka City, and, as a satellite city, it has developed since the opening of the electric railroad in 1910, which connects Osaka to Takarazuka via Toyonaka. Thus, in 1937 the city was municipalized combining its neighboring villages. In addition to the fact that it has made a remarkable development, the characteristic feature is that it is a residential quarter for the brain workers who have their jobs in Osaka. An analysis of its inhabitants, that is, the comparison of the drifting aspect of the city to those of all other cities in Japan gives the following characteristic points:- (1) The investigation of the previous residences of the immigrants in Toyonaka gives the ratio how many out of 100, 000 of the population of each prefecture drifted into the city. On the supposition that this ratio has relation to the distance between their previous prefectures and Osaka City the following formula may be applied:- Y=ae-bx Y=ratio of drifting population x=distance from Osaka to each pref. (km.) e=base of natural logarithm a. b=constants Setting up a borderline on Osaka to divide Japan in two parts-the east and the west, the value of “b” in each part approximates and the ratio of “a” in the east to that in the west is 1:2.4. The low ratio of “a” in the east shows that there are such big cities as Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Kyoto, and they exercise influential power of absorbing population. If we calculate the value of “Y” by divi ding each of the two parts in three drawing lines parallel to the insular arc, the value at the short distance is high in the Japan Sea area and at the long distance it is high in the Pacific Coast area. (2) 50% of the inhabitants of Toyonaka consists of the settlers from other prefectures. The city has a very high ratio of drifting population for a city of 70, 000 in population, and equals Osaka in this point. This differs from the theory of H. Carey on the drift of population. In addition, it ts indicated as an exceptional aspect that the drift to the city covers a nation-wide area. (3) The absorbing phenomenon of population of Toyonaka, as it is indicated in (2), is supposed to have the cause chiefly in the kinds of occupation. Therefore, to get the mean value of the drifting distance of the youth (12-25 of age) classified in their occupations, the writer picked up the three different areas in Osaka Pref. -productive, trading, and consuming. (each area must have the high ratio of population-at least more than 50% in each class). Through this work the ratio of the distance from the previous prefectures is shown as follows:- Consuming Productive Trading (4) From the result in (3) it is defined that in Toyonaka the mean age of the youth and their school careers are high. (5) Through the investigation of the territorial ratio of drifting population of each prefecture the writer has the conclusion that Toyonaka excels Osaka in the universality of the drifting in spite of its being a small satellite city, and that this fact results from the high ratio of the consuming population of the youth whose school careers are high, and high ratic of the mean age of the youth whose previous residences cover a wide area.