This paper is a sequel to the author's report of the Gakunan Pulp and Paper Industry District published in the Geographical Review of Japan Vol. 35 (1962), No. 9. In this paper an attempt is made to illustrate how a small local industrial area has lost or left its local characteristics.
The recent tremendous growth of industry in Japan is still taking place largely in the already highly industrialized areas and in their vicinities. After the Korean War, under the nation's new economic policy, which intended to foster concentration of manufacturing production, still it is gradually having an impact on many other parts of the country. In this trend, Shizuoka Prefecture came to rank seventh in the manufacturing production of Japan. In this prefecture the Gakunan District has played an important role in its industrial growth, especially in such industrial groups as machineries and chemicals.
There were three stages in industrialization of this district as the author pointed out before. Concentration of manufacturing production has long been lasting since the economic depression after World War I, or the second stage in industrialization. In this process most paper factories, which were initially established by local landowners, came into the hands of some paper commission merchants, because of fall of landowners. Through this stage, most landowners fell and few could be industrial capitalists. Daishowa-Seishi was established in 1938 by those merchants, being heir to old enterprisers' properties.
In the period of World War II, some monopolistic enterprises such as Tôshiba and Nissan, which are now ones of the leading producers of electrical machineries and automobiles respectively, opened their factories in the Gakunan District. The factories were moved and located here from the Tôkyô-Yokohama Industrial Belt in response to expanding military demands. Besides, consideration of danger from air attack was an innegligible factor in such industrial localization.
A quite similar tendency is becoming visible in other newly opened establishments by monopolistic enterprisers. This phenomenon is today's typical pattern of industrial localization in formerly locally developed industrial areas. It shows that a small local industrial area is losing its old-type local characteristic which industries were based on local labor, and means that the next stage in industrialization is taking place.
Under the circumstances mentioned above, the primary industry is declining. Small-scale fishing activity in coastal water is completely gone, and agricultural industry is declining. Along part of the Tôkaidô Railroad or surrounding sites of the Tagonoura Port, a very spacious cultivated land, mostly for paddy fields, is changing into industrial purposes including residential sections belonging to some large-scale factories. Figure 2 shows industrial impact on agricultural land. Black sign indicates intustrial land use, faint colored sign is for settlements. Old small factories by local capital are located in and near old settlements, and in contrast, new large factories by monopolistic capital are located along the Tokaido Line encroaching on paddy fields. Thus, many farmers lost a large portion of their farming land, in some cases even their own homes. They must have jobs other than agriculture.
In this industrialized district, farmers have many oppotunities to obtain jobs, so most of them stay in their towns or villages and get livelihood there. Though many families in rural settlements change their occupations to those of secondary or tertiary industries, they do not become pure wage workers rapidly as so expected, by completely leaving agriculture and because of their low wages. Part-time farming families are increasing year by year. Side work ratio to the total farming families is now over 85%.