Japanese Cities

2 Urban Growth in Prewar Japan

2 Urban Growth zn Prewar Japan Hachiro Nakamura With the Meiji restoration of 1868, Japan abolished the feudalism of the shogunate and embarked upon a course of modernization. Before exploring the growth of cities in modern Japan, this essay gives a brief account of cities in the Edo era (16031868 ). Unfortunately, sources from the era give inadequate data on the size of cities. They indicate the number of commoners only, excluding the warrior class, which may have constituted a sizable portion of the urban population. Fortunately, the national government established after the Meiji restoration began publishing population figures for all cities in Japan. The earliest disclosed that in 1875 Japan had ninety cities with populations of at least 10,000 and a total population of 34,806,000. This suggests a fairly well developed system of cities for the time. Since a city system does not change radically in a few years, the situation in 1875, only seven years after the abolition of feudalism, may be assumed to represent the legacy of the Edo era. A high level of city development was significant for Japan's ensuing progress and constituted one of the preconditions for the modernization of the country. CITIES IN THE Eoo ERA Centralized feudalism best characterizes the political system of Edo Japan (Steiner 1969, 19). Daimyos or feudal lords wielded sovereign power inside their fiefs but were under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate. The success of the shogunate contributed to the political peace of the Edo era, which lasted almost three hundred years until the Meiji restoration. One measure the shogun de26 URBAN GROWTH IN PREWAR JAPAN vised for controlling feudal lords was to endow with larger lands those lords who were powerful but not closely affiliated with the Tokugawa and more distant from Edo, the capital of the shogunate. This made rebellion more unlikely. Larger fiefs yielded more wealth, as measured in terms of rice. From this the lords collected tribute and were thus content in spite of the peripheral location of their fiefs. Lords who were affiliated with the Tokugawa by blood or who held hereditary retainers were granted smaller lands located nearer to Edo so that they might guard against an attack by a powerful lord. In addition, a number of areas of strategic importance were given magistrates' offices to keep them under the direct control of the shogunate. Another security measure was the system of alternate residence. It was mandatory for a lord to stay in Edo in alternate years and to keep his family, especially his wife, there permanently, ready to be taken hostage by the Tokugawa. Each lord had to make a long journey to and from Edo every other year, and because many of their retainers attended them on this journey, they were forced to expend large sums of money. Accordingly , the wealth that would otherwise have been accumulated and might have been used to challenge the Tokugawa was dissipated, and the barrier against rebellion made insurmountable. Political peace maintained in these ways favored the rise of commerce and industry, as did the site selected for the seat of government for the lords' clans. In the period preceding the Edo era feudal lords were in constant warfare, and security against attack constituted a primary criterion for site selection. Hilly places with deep gorges and precipitous cliffs were preferred sites for castles. With the termination of warfare, however , site choice favored flat land convenient for transportation by highway and rivers to hinterland provinces as well as to Edo. Thus, even though the castle was intended to be a strong fortress, primary consideration was given to economic development and the administration of territory . Toward these ends, feudal lords bade their retainers move their residences close to the castle and gathered commercial and craft activities to the site by affording merchants and craftsmen a number of privileges. As a result jokamachi, or castle towns, developed. The economic activities of castle towns became animated, especially in the latter half of the Edo era. In the meantime, the cultivation of rice, at that time the main product of Japan and the sale revenue of the lords' clan governments, was found to be unlucrative, and the lords encouraged the sale of other products indigenous to local fields. Highways and sea routes were developed first for the travel of the daimyo to and from Edo and later for the transportation of rice and other indigenous products. Castle towns burgeoned into cities. In the late Edo era...