Spatial Emerging Patterns of Vacant Land in a Japanese City Experiencing Urban Shrinkage

In response to the phenomenon of urban shrinkage that affects many Japanese cities, and its various associated social issues, the Japanese Government has implemented compact city policies as a part of urban planning. A compact city is characterized in Japan by dense and proximate urban areas that are linked by public transformation systems, but the feasibility of applying a single compact city model to different regional or local circumstances is susceptible. To understand the actual state of urban shrinkage, this study was aimed at examining spatial emerging patterns of vacant land in residential areas of mid-sized cities called “regional urban centers” in Japan where such patterns are still unknown. The study was conducted using a three-step procedure: a) identifying the overall trends of urban shrinkage in all Japanese regional urban centers and selecting a case study site b) constructing a detailed database of vacant land and five characteristics of the residential areas: age, orderliness, distance from the central area, convenience of public buses, and road width, and c) identifying the relations between the number of vacant lands and the characteristics of the residential areas by using a Poisson regression model. Tottori City, a regional urban center of Chugoku Region, was selected as the case study site. The results show that the convenience of public buses, one of the emphasized factors when the government made a compact city plan, had no relationship with the distribution of vacant land. It might be because Tottori residents highly depend on private cars and are little concerned with public transportations. Instead, a narrow road width appears to be one of the crucial hindrances of residential replacement. A high rate of vacant land then should be regarded not as problematic space but as a resource for reconstruction of residential areas, such as the widening of narrow roads.