Stagnation or Decline of Small and Medium-sized Cities and their Economic Base

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Three articles which I wrote in 1995 and 1996 are summarized as follows :1.Analyzing the structural changes of regional urban systems in Hiroshima Prefecture, I found that the Hiroshima metropolitan area grew rapidly in the last decades while small and medium-sized cities and towns could not grow due to their poor conditions of infrastructure, apart from those in Western countries.2.Based on about 530 questionnaires distributed to branch offices of wholesales and producer services in Hiroshima City, I found that branch offices are closely connected with those located in cities of its same or higher class in the transfer of office workers to another office as well as information exchanges with other offices by telephon or fax, while they have close lincages with those of cities such as Okayama, Fukuyama, Matsue etc. within Chugoku district or its western part as the territory area of branch offices in the trade dusiness.3.Examining the relations between firm activities and urban systems in 81 main cities, the growth rate of branch office workers is closely related with the rate of population increase. Although the growth rate of office workers is not so high in the Tokyo metropolitan area itself, the connection to it seems to be more strengthened in prefectural capitals than in provincial capitals in the last decade.