The Flowing Chō : Cart Transportation and the Redefinition of Japan's Early Modern Urban Space

Abstract

Abstract: This article proposes a reinterpretation of the meaning and function of the basic sociospatial unit of the early modern Japanese city, the chō . It argues that chō is best understood not as a fixed unit of space but as a conception that could expand, change, and even move. Takanawa-chō, a peripheral area south of Edo, was transformed into the gateway to the city by its association with the transportation industry. The dynamic movement of this particular "flowing chō " not only reflected but also drove the socioeconomic transformation of the city throughout the Tokugawa period and into the early Meiji era.