This book is an attempt to explain Japanese regional structure and
associated dynamism in terms of urban systems. It is extremely effective
to use the urban systems approach to explain the regional changes in
today's Japan, which is undergoing changes wrought by economic
globalization and the information revolution. This is because the
transformation into a service economy has become the key component of
the economic activities of cities, linkages are being mutually
strengthened, and regional development is being determined by the
interdependency of cities. Readers hoping to gain an understanding of
the regional geography of Japan may feel that the structure and content
of this book are lacking something. However, it is not the intention of
this book to systematically paint a total geographical image of Japan
within the context of East Asia. Instead, by focusing on urban systems
theory, it might be possible to theorize about the factors related to
the changing geography of Japan, such as the growth and decline
processes of Japanese urban systems, the strengthening of ties among
cities and associated factors, and the expansion of socioeconomic
exchanges with cities overseas, from a perspective that is different
from the conventional approach.