Takatsuki: A study of the living arrangements, marriage, and institutional membership in a Japanese commuter city

This thesis contributes to the anthropological literature concerning life in urban Japan. Dealing specifically with a commuter city outside of Osaka, the thesis provides general ethnographic description of that city and an analysis of neighborhood social organization there. Two neighborhood associations and a recently-established arranged marriage go-between service are focused upon in detail.;In contrast with urban situations in older Japanese cities and towns, commuter city neighborhoods are characterized by a lack of distinct local identity. Ten commuter cities in the northern part of Osaka Prefecture investigated for this research resembled each other strikingly in urban function, physical layout and in other aspects. Residents derive from diverse points of origin, mobility is high and neighborhood relations are typically alienating and sometimes tense. In such an environment one would expect to find the deterioration of neighborhood organizations such as the block association and a neighborhood-based arranged marriage service.;The persistence of these institutions, to the modest extent that they do continue to fulfill their intended charters, is discussed not chiefly in historical or functional terms, as has been done at length elsewhere. Instead two fresh angles of analysis are developed: (a) The relationship between physical and social space--including the roles of high population density, spiralling land prices and the participation of government and business in the development of municipal spaces; and (b) the strategies, interests and social predispositions associated with group membership in Japanese society generally and with respect to neighborhood participation in particular. These approaches are employed to furnish a core of ethnographic detail as well as to weight an argument in support of a new approach to the study of social change in Japan.