earticle

영어

In recent times, local small cities in Japan are facing difficulties due to the environments around downtowns such as the reduction in population, the aging of managers and the changes of commercial structure. At the instigation of the government, each local government is pushing ahead with various downtown revitalization policies, but they have hardly brought effect. For that reason, they are in urgent need of plans to clean up the cause for decline of downtowns and to improve the political effect. This study classified types of cities, depending on the changes of urban functions inside cities and the rise and decline of cities, and analyzed rise and decline properties of each type of city, targeting 62 local small cities where got approval for downtown revitalization basic planning from the Japanese government. For the study, 10 rise and decline types of downtowns were set, and characteristics of individual types were analyzed. As a result, each type showed rise and decline characteristics of cities, and this study demonstrated the influence of each field on downtown revitalization, the degree of rise and decline in downtowns, the relation between the scale of city, and the rise and decline rate of downtown, the effect of the downtown revitalization policy and the cause for decline of downtowns. Through analysis of rise and decline characteristics of local small cities and its causes, this study aims to propose future direction of policy deployment by suggesting fundamental principles which should be considered when central and local governments carry forward activation policies.