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Why do we need to understand the problems of local administration and finance from a geographic perspective? Although local governments are lumped together, there are major differences in size, the inhabitants’ characteristics, economic circumstances, geographic conditions, and historical background. Therefore, policy issues that local governments deal with are also diverse. Faced with this reality, how do individual local governments manage administration and finances while reflecting on region-specific policy needs? Further, how does the national government even out these disparities and make it possible for all local governments to provide certain services?
 
We wrote this volume with an awareness of these types of problems. The volume offers minimal descriptions of institutions, and focuses instead on how individual local governments respond to regional disparities and the kind of coordination and guidance that the national government provides in the background.
 
The volume comprises 12 chapters in four parts.
 
Part 1 organizes the relationship between national and local governments from the viewpoint of local institutions and fiscal transfer. Part 2 examines the outsourcing of administrative service, the location of nuisance facilities, welfare services (welfare for the elderly/childcare services), and public works, while focusing on the regional context behind measures and problems. Part 3 examines how the mass mergers of the Heisei period, which redrew the municipal map, changed the administrative and fiscal circumstances of local governments. Part 4 considers examples from overseas (Germany and South Korea), which have been developed in different regional contexts from those in Japan. Parts 1 through 3 also cover examples from all over Japan, including both major metropolitan and rural areas.
 
People with an interest in public administration and local finance will be able to deepen their understanding of local administration and finance at the ground level by rethinking the literature and knowledge they have read up to now from a geographic angle. We also believe that through this volume, people with an interest in geography will be able to understand that this field could be a subject for geographic research. We hope that the volume will serve as an aid to understanding phenomena that seemed self-evident and the mechanisms behind problems that have been explored in the past.
 
We wrote this volume as systematically and plainly as possible assuming its use as a textbook; in fact, it has been used in classrooms for third and fourth year undergraduate students at this university. It also includes numerous diagrams and photographs, therefore, a wide range of readers should find it useful.
 

(Written by KAJITA Shin, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / 2017)