Geographical Studies on the Structural Change in the Metropolitan Areas in Japan

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The purpose of this research was to examine the structural changes in the three metropolitan areas in Japan. Nobuo Takahashi, head investigator, clarified the spatial structure of the local government finance, through the investigation of regional difference and its changes in local government finance on cities, towns and villages. Ibaraki Prefecture is selected as study area, which is located on the fringe of Tokyo metropolitan area and has urbanized rapidly.From the analysis, it is elucidated that in the prefectural scale there has seriously regional variations in terms of local government finance. These regional variations are characterized by urban-rural contrast on local government finance, which is higher independent source of revenue in urban regions, and marked dependent source of revenue in rural regions. That is why government capital is distributed prior to the region which has lower independent source of revenue, through the government finance adjustment system. The growth of independent source of revenue reflects on urbanization process of the southern part of Ibaraki Prefecture. Government financial system generates the return of the capital to rural regions, where the capital is attracted by private finance from rural regions to urban regions.Since the urbanization brings the change in revenual and expenditural contents in each municipality, a process of metropolitanization in that municipality is examined from a viewpoint of government finance. Urban regions take larger percentages of obligatory expenditure than rural ones, because the urban region has higher rate of expenditure related to social security system. Investment expenditure is more important in the southern part of the prefecture that is necessary to accumulate social infrastructures on account of rapid urbanization, and mountainous northern territory, which pays great deal of aid for the local industrial development.