著者

岸本 實

出版者

The Association of Japanese Geographers

雑誌

地理学評論 (ISSN:00167444)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.54, no.7, pp.353-363, 1981-07-01 (Released:2008-12-24)

---

Professor G. T. Trewartha delivered the presidential address on “A Case for Population Geography” before the Association of American Geographers on the occation of its 49th annual meeting held in Cleveland, Ohio, March 20 _??_ April 2, 1953. He, then, suggested that in geography the central theme is human life and fundamentally geography is to be anthropocentric, and emphasized the necessity of the research of population geography. After the Second World War, the research works on population geography have increased so much in comparison to the Pre-War days, and it owes to a greater degree of spatial mobility than ever before, in almost all countries containing the developing and developed countries due to the results of stability of political conditions. The mobility has taken many forms; some have been in response to the general evolution of national societies and economies, others have acted as stimuli for fundamental social, economic, and political changes in the nations. In Japan, too, spatial mobility after the War has been equally intense as European countries. About eight millions or seven percents of the national population changed their residences in every year and such spatial mobility has changed the regional conditions in the country. Spatial mobility in Japan after the War has taken three types as follows: (1) rural-to-urban migration, especially in the first stage, (2) residential mobility in and around the great cities as the results of population concentration, (3) inter-urban migration mainly since the oil shock in 1973. As to the regional factors of the rural-urban migration, it has been, hitherto, insisted on that the economic motivation, that is, the lower level of income in the farm areas is the most important regional factor for the rural-to-urban migration. But it is not necessarily the most important. There are many other social factors which push out people to urban areas from rural farm, especially the breakdown of human relations in rural areas. As to the residential mobility and inter-urban migration, we are also forced to explain the factors from human values, want, needs, and choice of the inhabitants, in addition to the economic motivation.