A Geographical Study in the Now Proceeding Municipality Amalgamation in Japan

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In the last two years 1 surveyed the municipal onganisations in the eight states of Germany in order to supply some effective materials to the now ongoing municipal reform in Japan. As previously estimated, there are no countries in Western Europe executing the municipal reform now again. In the former West Germany not only amalgamations of normal type but also municipal unions (Gerneindeverbande) of several types with the population of 5000 or 8000 were formed in the 1970s. Fast all of municipal unions remain today without moving to the municipalities of normal type. The main reasons are in getting the modern municipal abilities without losing the right of self-government for the membered municipalities. It is recognized that it is very important for German citizens to keep the idea of Burgernahe and Ubersichtbarkeit in their municipalities. Large cities also have the organization of Bezirk owing to the self-government of wards. Contrarily in Japan, the self-government of small villages was lost already in the modernization by the amalgamation of Meiji era so that the real idea of self-government and local democrapy has not grown. In addition, it seems that the abolishment of gun-organization in early time has obviously influenced to the development of municipalities. Since my study in Germany does not yet complete, my research about the Japanese municipal reform has not progressed. However, I wrote a critical paper about the now ongoing municipal reform in Japan. Then I maintained that after the municipal amalgamation of large scale the financial situation of municipalities will be not so improved, under the difficult maintainance of the present level of public services as well as in destroying the community consciousness.