Explaining the Recent Migration Trends of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area

Abstract

The year 1994 was a very significant year for the Japanese urban system. In that year the Tokyo metropolitan area (TMA), which had enjoyed a net inflow of interregional migrants since the 1950s, recorded a net outflow for the first time. What factors gave rise to such a remarkable migration change for the area? The results from a set of time-series analyses lead the authors to conclude that, as far as the study period (1979–92) as a whole is concerned, the changing migration pattern of the TMA arose from factors closely related to Tokyo's transformation into a world city (specifically in terms of industrial restructuring and changes in residential land prices) and from cycles of economic boom and bust. However, it was found that the change to world city was more important than the economic cycle. Such findings suggest that the Japanese migration system experienced structural change during the 1980s and entered a new phase in the 1990s.