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<\/a><\/p>\nYanaka, Tokyo<\/em><\/p>\n I got into GRIPS<\/a>, short for National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies, with a fairly convoluted proposal. That fact, i.e. the proposal’s convolution, probably had something to do with me having been out of academia for almost a decade. My basic ideas revolved around the city and the economy, or more specifically, ‘How can specific factors of the urban form explain economic outcomes?’<\/p>\n Tokyo came to mind as a great case study. The Japanese economic miracle, i.e. the country’s post-war rapid growth, has been studied in great detail from all possible angles. Japanese cities, above all Tokyo, are of great interest to urban studies experts around the world. A combination of the two, i.e. discussing Tokyo (or by extension, the Japanese city) as the incubator of the Japanese miracle, has to date gotten fairly short shrift.<\/p>\n I had a few possible research avenues in mind. They had in common the question whether space can be associated with institutional and economic concepts, and vice versa. The more abstract ones were: Does Japan’s post-war state autonomy relate to the relative isolation of the government district? And: The developmental state was arguably in its strongest configuration when the state’s reach into the urban form via planning etc. was still very weak. Why?<\/p>\n The more straightforward ones were: Does Japan’s urban form have something to do with the nation’s historically equal income distribution? And: Can small urban workshops be regarded as a constituent element of “Japan Inc.” and in how far did the Japanese city sustain these small workshops and their integration into supply chains of larger industries?<\/p>\n Subtly underlying the above themes is the question why Tokyo has been such an adaptive\/adaptable city throughout Japan’s post-war economic history. What are the historical roots of this?<\/p>\n Of course, it is much easier to write a proposal than to actually start writing on the PhD itself. Thanks to an extensive term paper I had to write for my economic history class, I honed in on the urban workshop theme a lot more and think that it may be the most lucrative research angle I can pursue.<\/p>\n Tokyo’s small workshops (I define them as having less than ten employees) are more important than those in other countries to this day. This has historical roots: labour-intensive industrialisation in Japan was also an urban phenomenon. Many industries integrated small family-owned workshops into their supply chains, drawing on skilled and flexible labour for certain production processes.<\/p>\n My idea is to historicise the small urban workshop with a focus on the post-war period, but as opposed to agglomeration economics look for clues as to continued existence and success\u00a0of these workshops in the urban studies and political economy fields. I am not sure how such a hybrid study will go down methodologically, but then again it’s early days!<\/p>\n From Tokyo, I would like to move on to other cities. One idea was to look at either Seoul or Taipei as another East Asian example; and from there branch out to a contemporary developing city, possibly in India. Labour-intensive industrialisation remains a pathway to economic development in poor countries, while urbanisation and associated problems are a key issue in today’s development debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been a few months since I moved to Tokyo. My initial ideas regarding my PhD have matured a little bit, although of course things are still in flux. Meanwhile, this blog has been a little dormant. Perhaps I can … Continue reading