Toyota City in Transition (eBook)

This informative monograph focuses on the city of Toyota, located in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Aside from the fact that most Toyota passenger vehicles are produced there, generally little is known about its reality.

Since the 1960s, the city has continuously attracted numerous jobseekers from distant rural areas. Owing to years of stable employment and settlement within local communities, once-new workers gradually build strong ties with their neighbours and actively participate in residential activities. This pattern of settlement provides a unique example of long-prosperous industrial cities, which deserves discussion against a backdrop of the present 'de-industrializing' urban economies.

Unfortunately, this favourable situation is now changing, despite the regional economy's steady recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. Addressing this paradox is the main focus of the present book. The upgrading of the Toyota Production System and concomitant widening class disparity are damaging local ties under severe pressure from global competition. Other suppressing factors are driven by sociological conditions, such as aging, declining marriage rates and birth rates. By comparing two sets of survey data, from 2009 and 2015, and performing fieldwork research in two communities that once were 'new towns', the book seeks to provide an understanding of the present situation of this unusual industrial city. At the same time, a unique theoretical perspective is revealed that does not fit the mould of either the Chicago School or the new urban sociology.

Nobuhiko Nibe

Professor, Sociology Department at School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University. Prior to this, he completed his B.A. and M.A. at Tokyo University and worked as an assistant professor. After coordinating efforts to establish the Tokai Sociological Society in Chubu (Central) Area with other founders, he is also serving as director of the Japan Sociological Society. His books include Transformation of Social Stratification and Group Formation (2006) and Toyota City and Toyota Motor (2014).

Having completed PhD on theoretical relationship of group formation to class structure at Nagoya University (2004), his main concern has shifted toward urban study and community study, to apply and examine the ideas of earlier research. Funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), he has been continuously engaged in empirical research in industrial cities such as Toyota City, Kariya City and Yokkaichi City (well known for its past environmental pollution). In recent years, he was invited to Hongkong City University, Fu Jen Catholic University, Jiling University, Nanjing University, Seoul National University, etc. as a guest speaker or visiting scholar.

 

Mari Nakamura

Professor of Sociology at the Nagoya Bunri University. The author of Dynamics of Symbol Structure and Collective Action(2012). Her current research interests include dietary habits and collective actions in rural communities.

 

Hiroshi Yamaguchi

Associate Professor at the Faculty of letters in Tsuru University. His primary research interest is the linguistic conflict between French and Dutch speakers in the periphery of Brussels (Belgium) from an organizational structure perspective. Now he expands his research interest to the national minority issues and border studies. Yamaguchi examines the situation of Japanese South American immigrants and the organizational networks for their social integration in Japanese industrial cities. In addition, he keeps engaging intranational migration as his research interests in Japan. In last domain, he won an academic paper award of Japan Association for Regional and Community Studies on 2019.

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This informative monograph focuses on the city of Toyota, located in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Aside from the fact that most Toyota passenger vehicles are produced there, generally little is known about its reality.Since the 1960s, the city has continuously attracted numerous jobseekers from distant rural areas. Owing to years of stable employment and settlement within local communities, once-new workers gradually build strong ties with their neighbours and actively participate in residential activities. This pattern of settlement provides a unique example of long-prosperous industrial cities, which deserves discussion against a backdrop of the present "e;de-industrializing"e; urban economies.Unfortunately, this favourable situation is now changing, despite the regional economy's steady recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. Addressing this paradox is the main focus of the present book. The upgrading of the Toyota Production System and concomitant widening class disparity are damaging local ties under severe pressure from global competition. Other suppressing factors are driven by sociological conditions, such as aging, declining marriage rates and birth rates. By comparing two sets of survey data, from 2009 and 2015, and performing fieldwork research in two communities that once were "e;new towns"e;, the book seeks to provide an understanding of the present situation of this unusual industrial city. At the same time, a unique theoretical perspective is revealed that does not fit the mould of either the Chicago School or the new urban sociology.