Class and space: social segregation in Japanese cities

It has become increasingly common to play down the `place stratification' of Japanese cities, and to emphasize their lack of social class segregation. Demonstrating that the Japanese city lacks a social geography in this respect conforms to, and serves to advance, the view that Japan has produced a capitalist form of development that avoids many of the inequalities and social ills characteristic of other advanced capitalist societies (e.g. no `inner city' problems). But do the social geographies of Japanese cities really conform to this picture of Japanese society? This issue is explored with the help of a new analysis of the occupational class geography of the city of Kyoto.