Gentrification and Spatial Polarization in Eastern Inner-City Tokyo: The Restructuring of the Kyojima Area in Sumida Ward

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This study focuses on the Kyojima area in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, a typicalinner-city Tokyo neighborhood, which serves as an exemplar of redevelopmentand gentrification in a Japanese context. It explores the attributesof gentrifiers, an urban middle-class social group new to Japan and withnotable characteristics. Although previous studies on Tokyo have focusedon its three central wards, few have examined its wider inner-city dynamics.This study examines a redevelopment that is changing the face ofthe Shitamachi, the working class neighborhoods located in the low landareas of Tokyo, which survived World War II bombings and where micro,small and medium-sized local manufacturing industries remain concentrated.Similar to other large cities such as London, Paris, and New York,Tokyo has experienced changes in its socio-economic structure since the1960s, associated with population growth following the redevelopment ofits inner urban areas. This study determines some of the characteristics ofJapanese gentrification; it is informed by the 2015 population census, aswell as interview data collected since 2012. Drawing upon empirical casestudy data, the general sociological discourse of the local as "defensiveresponse to the increasing general power of globalising forces" (Savage,2005:200) is critically evaluated in light of this particular Japanese exampleof gentrification.

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