Periurbanization as the institutionalization of place: The case of Japan

This contribution suggests that the process of periurbanization should be understood as a contingent and dynamic process of institutionalization of place, and that a key focus of research should be on the institution-transformative and generative aspects of periurbanization processes, and the factors that shape them. These processes take place at a moment of institutional openness, when existing land uses and institutions are displaced, and during which actors of all sorts compete over space and the establishment of new institutions, infrastructures and power relationships. I argue for comparative study of both the institutions that structure processes of land-use change and land development in the periurbs, and the spatially differentiated institutional landscapes that are created during processes of periurbanization. I suggest that we see periurbanization not merely as land development, but as a place-making and institution-building process, during which dense matrices of new institutions are established, often with enduring impacts. This overlay of new institutional structures onto existing places is highly variable in different places, and produces contingent sets of opportunities and sometimes highly unequal distributions of the costs and benefits of periurbanization that have long-term consequences for the future urbanity that develops. The case of Japan is presented as an example of one way in which an evolving set of institutions shaped periurbanization through the period of modernization and of rapid urban industrial growth.