Economic History of Cities and Housing

134 Pages·2017·1.998 MB·English

by  Satoshi Baba (eds.)

Monograph Series of the Socio-Economic History Society,
Japan
Satoshi Baba Editor
Economic
History of
Cities and
Housing
Monograph Series of the Socio-Economic
History Society, Japan
Series Editor
S. Sugiyama, Professor Emeritus, Keio University
Editorial Board Members
Haruhito Takeda, Professor Emeritus, The University of Tokyo
Minoru Sawai, Professor, Faculty of Business Administration, Nanzan University
Tomoko Shiroyama, Professor, Graduate School of Economics, The University of
Tokyo
Kazuhiko Yago, Professor, School of Commerce, Waseda University
Tetsuhiko Takai, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Economics and Business
Administration, Hokkaido University
This monograph series is published by the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan,
and Springer.
The aim of the series is to make works by Japanese scholars accessible to a wider
readership and thereby enhance the global knowledge of Japanese and Asian
scholarship in the fields of economic, social, and business history.
This book series will present English translations of outstanding recent academic
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environment, the consumer society and the company system in postwar Japan, and
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include chapters on economic, social, and business history ranging geographically
from Japan and Asia as a whole to Europe and the United States, and a small num-
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The Society was founded in 1930 and currently comprises more than 1400
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13569
Satoshi Baba
Editor
Economic History of Cities
and Housing
Editor
Satoshi Baba
Graduate School of Economics
The University of Tokyo
Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
ISSN 2364-2394 ISSN 2364-2408 (electronic)
Monograph Series of the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan
ISBN 978-981-10-4096-2 ISBN 978-981-10-4097-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4097-9
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Preface
This book is the fourth volume in a monograph series published by the Socio-
Economic History Society, Japan, and Springer. It contains four recent articles and
four short book reviews of recent academic Japanese-language works, all on topics
related to the history of cities and housing.
Urban history is an important area of socio-economic history that interacts with
a wide range of other disciplines, including jurisprudence, public administration,
economics, sociology, geography and architectonics. Previously, most historians in
Europe and Japan focused on the medieval period, but recently, there has been
increasing interest in the period from the eighteenth century onwards because of the
deep impact that industrialization had on urbanization. There has been particular
interest in the cities of the twentieth century because of the many changes that
occurred in both urban policy and systems of municipal administration during this
period. The high population density of the twentieth-century city produced a wide
range of problems including unemployment and sanitation that could not be solved
by local governments alone. The provision of adequate housing was an area where
central government had a particularly important role to play. However, ordinary citi-
zens also participated in finding solutions to these problems, as members of volun-
tary associations or city councilors.
The first two articles discuss urban formation and housing in Japan during the
mid-twentieth century. Chapter 1, by Numajiri, uses the case of Amagasaki City in
Hyogo Prefecture to examine the implementation of land readjustment in the period
from the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 up to the period of
reform that followed World War II. Although tenant cultivation rights were strength-
ened during the war years, laws and regulations concerning city planning were not
revised to take this into account. As a result, conflicts occurred between landowners
and tenant farmers when land readjustment projects were resumed. The former were
successful in litigation against the latter, allowing the reallocation of agricultural
land for public use. Nevertheless, tenant farmers were able to retain land for agricul-
tural use within newly formed urban areas. This is an important characteristic of
urban formation in Japan.
v
vi Preface
Chapter 2, by Ono, examines the reconstruction of the living spaces devastated
during World War II through a case study of Tokyo in the late 1940s. The author also
provides a historical account of the reconstruction process from the perspective of
the creation and distribution of private residential space under the postwar Japanese
regulatory regime. Residential rent controls protected tenants of rented accommo-
dation that had escaped wartime destruction but dealt a fatal blow to the housing
supply system that was in place at the time. Moreover, rent controls and heavy taxa-
tion meant that many rented units turned into owner-occupied houses. Consequently,
an enormous number of people found that they could not live in Tokyo unless they
could find rooms to rent through personal connections. Since living spaces became
increasingly crowded and the existing housing stock was not properly maintained,
there was a sharp deterioration of housing standards in Japan.
The next two articles are concerned with urban social policy and urban industry
in twentieth-century Europe. Chapter 3, by Mori, examines the adoption of com-
munal unemployment insurance systems in Wilhelminian Germany through case
studies of two cities in the Greater Berlin Administration Union. The most well-
known system of communal unemployment insurance was the Genter system, under
which the city paid subsidies to trade unions so that they could provide their out-of-
work members with unemployment benefits. But the introduction of the system
varied according to the circumstances of individual cities, and Schöneberg was the
only city adjoining Berlin to establish such a system, in 1911. A similar system was
proposed in Charlottenburg, but was rejected by the city council. Communal unem-
ployment insurance systems in Germany were local attempts to tackle the problem
of unemployment before the enactment of the German Unemployment Insurance
Act of 1927. They are typical examples of the way in which cities played a pioneer-
ing role in the emergence of the welfare state.
Chapter 4, by Nakajima, examines the development of the mechanical engineer-
ing industry in the Paris region in the period from 1939 to 1958. Mechanical engi-
neering in this area was reactivated by the policy of rearmament introduced from
1935. Despite stagnation during the Vichy period and the unsettled situation imme-
diately after the war, it blossomed in the early 1950s. The manufacture of aircraft
engines, industrial motors and machine tools were the leading sectors. The concen-
tration of the French mechanical engineering industry in the Paris region is worthy
of attention because of the thick tissu industriel from assemblers to suppliers and
from finishers to intermediate processors all collected in the same region. It can be
seen as a typical case of the development of urban industry through industry
clusters.
The four book reviews also deal with recent Japanese-language studies in the
fields of urban and housing history. They are an empirical investigation into land
development in a suburban area of Tokyo in the mid-twentieth century by Shūichi
Takashima (Chap. 5); the results of a collaborative research project on British urban
history in the ‘long’ eighteenth century (Chap. 6) edited by Tadashi Nakano,
Tatsuyuki Karasawa and Ichirō Michishige; a pioneering work on Czech housing
policy and social history in the first half of the twentieth century by Yoshiyuki
Morishita (Chap. 7); and a detailed study of German housing problems and
Preface vii
non-p rofit housing in the 1920s that focuses on the case of the city of Solingen by
Nodoka Nagayama (Chap. 8).
I would like to thank Professor Helen Ballhatchet, who translated Chaps. 1 and 5
and checked the Preface and Chaps. 3 and 4; Dr. Kōichi Inaba, who translated Chap.
2; Ms. Louisa Rubinfien, who checked Chaps. 2 and 7; and Ms. Ruth Fallon, who
checked Chaps. 6 and 8.
Tokyo, Japan Satoshi Baba
Contents
Part I E conomic and Social History of Cities and Housing
in Japan and Europe
1 Landowners and Tenant Farmers in the Process
of Urban Formation: A Case Study of Amagasaki City,
Hyogo Prefecture, 1937–1952 ................................................................... 3
Akinobu Numajiri
2 Housing Reconstruction in War-Damaged Cities:
The Creation and Distribution of Living Spaces
in the Late 1940s Under Postwar Governmental Controls ................... 35
Hiroshi Ono
3 Communal Unemployment Insurance in Wilhelminian
Germany: A Case Study of the Greater Berlin
Administration Union ............................................................................... 67
Takahito Mori
4 The Short-Lived Revival of the Mechanical Engineering
Industry in the Paris Region 1939–1958 ................................................. 87
Toshikatsu Nakajima
Part II Book Reviews
5 Review of Shūichi Takashima, Toshi Kinkō no Kōchi Seiri
to Chiiki Shakai: Tokyo-Setagaya no Kōgai Kaihatsu (Urban
Development and Local Communities in Interwar Tokyo) ................... 107
Akinobu Numajiri
ix
x Contents
6 Review of Tadashi Nakano, Tatsuyuki Karasawa
and Ichirō Michishige (eds), 18 Seiki no Igirisu
Toshikūkan o Saguru: Toshi “Runesansu” ron Saikō
(Exploring Urban Space in Eighteenth-Century England:
A Reappraisal of the Urban Renaissance Debate) ................................. 113
Minoru Yasumoto
7 Review of Yoshiyuki Morishita, Kindai Cheko Jūtaku
Shakaishi: Shinkokka no Keisei to Shakaikōsō
(Czech Housing Policy and Social History
in the First Half of the Twentieth Century:
Building the First Czechoslovak Republic) ............................................ 117
Nodoka Nagayama
8 Review of Nodoka Nagayama, Doitsu Jyūtaku Mondai
no Shakai Keizaishi teki Kenkyū: Fukushi Kokka to
Hieiri Jyūtaku Kensetsu (Study on the Socio-economic
History of Housing Problems in Germany:
Welfare State and Non-profit Housing) .................................................. 121
Satoshi Baba
Index ................................................................................................................. 127