CREATIVE INDUSTRIES IN MAJOR CITIES OF JAPAN

Abstract

The article seeks to identify the features of creative industries in Japanese cities with a population over 1 million people. Since there is no universal definition of creative industries in Japan and no officially adopted classification, we analyzed and aggregated various sources of information to develop a classification of creative industries, which takes into account specific features of Japanese culture and traditions. The analysis of creative industries in the largest cities has revealed that the advanced creative industry, i. e. “IT and computer services”, is the most developed creative sector in Japan. The most widely spread traditional industries include “crafts and applied arts” and “architecture”. For all 12 cities included in the analysis we calculated specialization coefficients, i.e. the ratio of the share of creative organizations and employed in the creative industries in a city to the corresponding shares of the industry in the country, and built petal diagrams for all creative industries. As a result, we have obtained an understanding about creative profiles of all largest Japanese cities. We applied a comparative-geographical method to identify territorial differences in the development of creative industries in Japanese cities, and a cartographic method to reveal the territorial structure of creative industries at the national level. The study has shown that the creative industries are unevenly distributed over the country and the territorial structure of creative industries in Japan is monocentric with hyperconcentration in Tokyo, the “creative hub” of the whole country, which is intended to become a creative center of Asia. Our study revealed that as the city’s population decreases, the number of creative organizations and people employed in creative industries is declining quite steadily. The progress of the creative sector is an important component of the “Cool Japan” national policy, which views Japanese traditions and cultural heritage as innovations for economic growth and the development of creative industries. Depending on the number of found creative industries we identified first-, second-, and third-order “creative cores” which have a potential to become creative centers in their regions.