Kōkoku Toshi Tōkyō: Sono Tanjō to Shi (The Advertising City of Tokyo: Its Birth and Death), by Kitada Akihiro. Tokyo: Kōsaidō Shuppan, 2002, 203 pp., ¥1,470 (ISBN 433185017X)
Abstract
one, however, must be carefully considered. The author lists the similarities among Asian countries, such as their experiences with late-starting capitalist nation-building and rapid urbanization, but something is needed to mediate these characteristics, and a discussion of Asian urban planning offers a pattern. For example, some research in Japan classifies East Asia (Japan, Korea and Taiwan) as one group based on more specific criteria. (On the trends of this research, refer to Watanabe Shunichi (2004)). Special emphasis is placed on the historical fact that Korea and Taiwan were Japanese colonies in the prewar period, and urban planners who were unable to implement certain strategies in Japan used Korea and Taiwan as urban-planning experiments. Moreover, the fact that these urban planning policies have remained in place in the postwar period is another reason for this categorization. As I mentioned earlier, the authorâs emphasis that characteristics of a society stipulate the conditions of urban planning in that society is seen uniformly throughout the book. I have no objections to this assertion. However, in dividing various countries into types in the process of international comparative study, a closer look not only at general social and economic characteristics, but also at perspectives