Tokyo là thành phố lớn nhất Nhật Bản, với dân số hiện đang vượt quá 30 triệu người. Tắc nghẽn trên các chuyến tàu đi lại gần như không thể chịu đựng nổi, với mức trung bình thời gian cho hành khách để tiếp cận trung tâm thành phố Tokyo (bao gồm ba phường trung tâm Chiyoda, Minato, và Chuo) là 71 phút một chiều trong Năm 1995. Dựa trên những quan sát này, nhiều người cho rằng Tokyo là quá lớn và rằng các biện pháp chính sách mạnh mẽ được gọi là để khắc phục sự mất cân bằng. Tuy nhiên, nó cũng đúng. | 16 Estimating Urban Agglomeration Economies for Japanese Metropolitan Areas Is Tokyo Too Large Yoshitsugu Kanemoto Toru Kitagawa Hiroshi Saito and Etsuro Shioji CONTENTS Production Functions with Agglomeration Cross-Section Panel A Test for Optimal City Introduction Tokyo is Japan s largest city with a population currently exceeding 30 million people. Congestion on commuter trains is almost unbearable with the average time for commuters to reach downtown Tokyo consisting of the three central wards of Chiyoda Minato and Chuo being 71 minutes one-way in 1995. Based on these observations many argue that Tokyo is too large and that drastic policy measures are called for to correct this imbalance. However it is also true that the enormous concentration of business activities in downtown Tokyo has its advantages. The Japanese business style that relies heavily on face-to-face communication and the mutual trust that it fosters may be difficult to maintain if business activities are geographically decentralized. In this sense Tokyo is only too large when deglomeration economies such as longer commuting times and congestion externalities exceed these agglomeration benefits. 229 Copyright 2006 Taylor Francis Group LLC 230 GIS-based Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences In this chapter we estimate the size of agglomeration economies using the Metropolitan Employment Area MEA data and apply the so-called Henry George Theorem to test whether Tokyo is too large. Kanemoto et al. 1996 was the first attempt to test optimal city size using the Henry George Theorem by estimating the Pigouvian subsidies and total land values for different metropolitan areas and comparing them. We adopt a similar approach but make a number of improvements to the estimation technique and the data set .
