The Influences of "Seto Gigantic Bridge" on the Regional Structure of National Economy

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The Opening of "Seto Gigantic Bridge" has changed heavily the flow of passengers between Honsyu and Shikoku, but has not particularly affected freightage because of its high toll. Transport firms do not make their trucks cross the Gigantic Bridge unless their cargoes are dear for their weights. Many trucks still cross the Inland Sea of Seto aboard ferry-boats.The Gigantic Bridge has attracted a vast mass of sightseers from around the country, and many tourist spots in Chusan District of Kagawa Prefecture, Matuyama City and its suburbs in Ehime Prefecture and south part of Okayama Prefecture have also been crowded with travelers who visited there on the way to and from the Gigantic Bridge. But many other tourist spots around there have declined more or less, being taken their visitors by more famous and equipped spots. In the other words, they have been affected by "backward effects" of the Gigantic Brige.Such large newspaper firms as the Asahi and the Yomiuri established printing factories near the Gigantic Bridge in Kagawa Prefecture, and since then, they have delivered the printed papers by way of the Bridge to the readers in Chugoku District. A transport firm built storehouses in the Freight Circulating Center at the foot of the Bridge, and have supplied rolls of paper to the printing factories. Like this, the Gigantic Bridge is contributing to the "information innovation" and partly causing a kind of restructuring of spatial division of labor.