The Function of a Small-Sized City in Metropolitan Area

Abstract

Mobara city, Chiba prefecture is a small city situated in 2 hours'ride from Tokyo. Before World War II, it was a mere local market town for the surrounding agricultural area. During the war, there were established many factories, which have accelerated the growth of the city. The increase of the population from 1940 to 1945 (Fig. 1) was not only derived of the increase of factories, but also of the wartime-evacuees from Tokyo. The main industry today is an electric valve production for radio or T. V. sets. One of the location factors of the production is the natural gas of this area, which is an overflow of the industrial function of Tokyo. In the operation course, this manufacture demands cheap and abundant labor force for its simple handicraft. For this purpose, they are gathering the female labor force from the adjacent areas. On the other hand, male labor force cannot find the suitable posts, but it flows out to Tokyo or Chiba Cities to search their jobs (Table 8). In general, when they find their occupations in Tokyo or Chiba Cities, they have a probabillty to get higher incomes and to get white-coloured occupations compared with those in Mobara City. Then, the citizen of former Mobara town (built-up district) commute to those greater cities, and country-side workers come to fill the vacancies. In all industries, there is difference of ¥79, 000 in annual incomes between Tokyo and Mobara Cities (Table 9). However, as 89% of the workers belong to the class of the annual income below 360, 000, the difference in the annual income of this class between the two cities is only ¥32, 000, and that difference signifies almost the same amount of commuter's season ticket. That is to say, these commuters to greater cities must find their houses in those cities, but they cannot remove to the urban region because of the housing shortage and expensive cost. And this commuting condition depends on a good traffic service. Also, we recognize similar connection among those three regions in commerce and daily life. For instance, in November, 1/4 of households of the object of our survey visits greater cities for their business, meeting, shopping, amusement and so on. In conclusion, I must say that Mobara City has three characteristic features: the first is as a local center to be surrounded by agricultural areas, the second is as a dormitory satellite city and the third is as an industrial satellite city. The reason why Mobara City does not grow up as a larger industrial city is the difference of labor force that industry demands. Thus, Mobara City plays a part of overflow of the industrial function of Tokyo, and at the same time, it supports the horizontal expansion of Tokyo, like other surrounding satellite cities.