町村合併計画の変遷から見た市町村領域の再編成過程--昭和期福島県中通りを事例として
スポンサーリンク
概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
After the World War II, the realignment of local municipal areas in Japan was enforced in order to improve the financial situation of municipalities. It reduced the number of municipalities drastically in three years by enlarging municipal areas. In terms of spatial organization, many new municipal areas consisted of a town (cho) and some villages (son). The purpose of this paper is to explain, as an example, why such a feature of the realignment was found in Naka-dori, Fukushima Prefecture.The first official guideline for the realignment was presented on the recommendation of the Kanbe Committee in 1949. From the financial and administrative points of view, the recommendation said that the standard population of a new municipality should be 7, 000 to 8, 000, and gave a negative opinion on the iocorporation of rural villages into a city (shi) or a town. The central government, however, had an intention to decrease the number of municipalities with small populations because of national finance, and directed the prefectures and the municipalities to increase population of new municipalities over 8, 000 to as large as possible, when the law for the realignment was established in 1953. Simultaneously, the central government indicated, as a means of the realignment, that municipalities with small population should be annexed to a city or a town with over 8, 000 people, and encouraged the prefectural governments to incorporate villages into a city or a town. Meanwhile, some governmental officials of the Agency of Local Autonomy stated that the ideal re-formation was the amalgamation of a town functioning as a central place and villages surrounding and having socio-economic relations to it.In this paper, we discuss how the realignment was applied to the planned and realized realignment in Naka-dori, where 37 municipalities functioning as central places were dispersed. Before the establishment of the law in 1953, few central places were included in new municipal areas planned by the prefectural government. But after the law was enforced, the prefectural plan of realignment was changed often. In the final prefectural plan in 1954, almost all the central places were included in new municipal areas, and the average population of new municipalities (22, 041) was the largest of all the prefectural plans made. This meant that the prefectural government followed the directions of the central government faithfully. That is, in the final plan, many new municipal areas consisted of a city or a town as a central place and some villages surrounding it.After 1954, the final plan came into effect. Although not all the new municipal areas were re-formed as planned, the feature of the realignment in the final plan stated above was kept in new municipal areas. In this way, the objective of the central and the prefectural government was roughly achieved. It can be said that the enforcement of the realignment in Naka-dori, was influenced not only by the directions of the governmental sector, but also by actual socio-economic relations between a central place and its peripheral areas.
- 人文地理学会の論文